A file picture of Umadevi Kalburgi, centre, leading a silent march in Dharwad to mark the first death anniversary of Kalburgi.

NEW DELHI:

23 March 2018 20:54 IST

Despite assurances from the Karnataka govt. no breakthrough has been reached, says widow

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Friday that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) cannot be roped in to probe the unsolved murder unsolved murder of Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee and anti-superstition activist Professor M.M. Kalburgi.

The government said the murder is not one of the scheduled offences listed in the NIA Act of 2008, which governs the specialised agency, which investigates terror activities and threats to national security.

Kalburgi's widow, Umadevi, had moved the Supreme Court seeking a co-ordinated probe into the deaths of her husband and those of activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. Dabholkar was murdered on August 20, 2013 in Pune. Pansare was killed on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, just few months before the murder of Kalburgi on August 30, 2015. Ms. Umadevi alleged the murder weapon used to kill Pansare and Kalburgi were the same.

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Advocate Abhay Nevagi, for Ms. Umadevi, contended that NIA hadinvestigated the 2009 Goa blast case in which the alleged shooters of Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Maharashtra were accused.

'No breakthrough in CID probe'

In her petition, Ms. Umadevi argued that the Karnataka Police investigation has meandered over the past three years despite assurances from the State that the “biggest manhunt” by the State C.I.D. is underway. She had alleged the same shooters may be involved in the Goa bomb blasts of 2009 and may have already fled the country.

The petition alleged that the NIA has been seeking the arrest of the shooters in both the murders of Dabholkar, Pansare and the Goa bomb blasts case. The bomb blasts were investigated by the NIA. However only some of the accused were tried, and the trial had led to their acquittal.

A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the Centre, NIA, CBI, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa governments to file their responses to a plea by Umadevi to set up a special investigation team to be supervised by a retired judge of the high court or the Supreme Court. She said her husband's murder should be investigated by taking into consideration the common links it shares with the killings of Dabholkar and Pansare.

The court has scheduled the case for hearing in the first week of July.