Alleged Dabholkar shooter revealed that he would call suspected conspirator Tawde by the code name to throw off suspicion
Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar are suspected to be Dabholkar's shooters
Right-winger Sachin Andure, who allegedly killed social crusader Dr Narendra Dabholkar, has told investigators that he would call fellow suspect Dr Virendra Tawde by the code name 'Bhaijaan'. Tawde was arrested earlier by the CBI in the case and is suspected to be one of the main conspirators.
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The code names were used in communication to ensure that even if their messages were intercepted, no one would be able to interpret them. This is why despite Tawde's arrest in 2016, Andure was only arrested only two years later. Sources said there were many such code words that are being de-coded now to unravel the conspiracy. Sources said that so far, it seems Andure and Sharad Kalaskar were the shooters. Kalaskar is in the custody of the ATS in the Nalasopara-Pune arms haul case, and it was based on his information that CBI arrested Andure for the Dabholkar killing on Aug 20, 2013. The CBI will also arrest Kalaskar once the ATS custody ends.
Andure was allegedly aware of all the details, and knew who Dabholkar was and why he was being killed. Kalaskar, on the other hand, only knew that they were killing someone big. Sources added that from the interrogation, it seems that Tawde may have tried to mislead the police by floating names of Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar as shooters.
After Andure's arrest, the CBI and ATS carried out a joint operation on August 21, and recovered a 7.65 mm bore gun, along with three live cartridges, a dragger and a sword from the residence of a friend of Sachin Andure's brother-in-law in Aurangabad. CBI has sent the weapon to the state forensic lab for ballistic tests, to check if the gun was used in Dabholkar shooting in Pune. A senior CBI official said they are in the process of verifying all the claims, but confirmed that the suspects did communicate in code words.
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