19 August,2018 07:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Anurag Kamble, Rahul Mahajani and Chaitraly Deshmukh
Narendra Dabholkar
Exactly five years after anti-superstition crusader Dr Narendra Dabholkar was gunned down in cold blood in Pune, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has nailed the man who pulled the trigger - Aurangabad resident Sachin Prakashrao Andure.
The breakthrough came during the questioning of the three people arrested last week for criminal conspiracy and planning to carry out bomb blasts to disrupt communal harmony. Sharad Kalaskar, who was arrested along with Vaibhav Raut, from Nalasopara, revealed Andure's name to the ATS.
Sachin Prakashrao Andure
The information was relayed to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), resulting in Andure's arrest from Pune. He will be produced before a Pune court on Sunday. ATS officials said it was during the initial remand of the three arrested - Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanwa Ghondhalekar - that Kalaskar told the officers he was involved in Dabholkar's 2013 murder. "We then grilled the accused until he gave us Andure's name," said an officer on condition of anonymity. "When Andure was questioned by the CBI about the murder, he gave exactly the same information that Kalaskar gave to the ATS," he added. Andure told the CBI that they had used one motorcycle and it was he who had fired upon Dr Dabholkar.
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On June 10, 2016, the CBI had arrested Dr Virendra Tawade from Panvel in connection with the murder plot. According to CBI, Tawade is the mastermind in the murder and provided all the logistics to the shooters. Andure lives in Kuwarfalli area of Aurangabad with his wife and daughter. According to sources, he works in a cloth store in Nirala Bajar. Sachin was a friend of Kalaskar.
Dr Narendra Dabolkar's daughter, Mukta, a lawyer by profession, said, "This is a development we have been awaiting for five years. But, as we have said earlier, the investigation needs to be in-depth. We don't just want the arrest of one lone person connected to the mastermind. They need to get to the root of the problem."
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