The body of a man found in Belagavi district resembling the sketch of suspect in the Kalaburgi murder case has added a new twist in a case that has seen little progress.
The body of a man with two bullet wounds to the chest was found in the Manikwadi forest area in Khanapur taluk 10 days ago. His face is said to resemble that of one of the suspects whose sketch has been released by the Dharwad city police on September 2. The Dharwad police had released a sketch of two persons believed to have murdered Kannada writer MM Kalburgi in his house in Dharwad city on August 30.
Belagavi SP Ravikanthe Gowda told The News Minute that while he was aware of this circumstance, he said their priority was to ascertain the identity of the body. “First, we have to identify the body. We have released his image to all the media and the police. Until now, we have no concrete evidence to link this man with any murder, let alone Kalburgi’s murder.”
Asked about the resemblance between the face of the unidentified body and that of the Kalburgi murder suspect, Gowda said that they were “investigating all possible links to the body”, but added that the resemblance between a sketch and an actual person was often just 40 percent and therefore, nothing could be said for certain at the moment.
In the second week of September Maharashtra Police arrested Samir Gaidwad in connection with the murder of Govind Pansare. This was followed by the arrests of two others from Hukkeri Belagavi district. Until then police had made little headway in investigations. Since then, despite questioning various people, there had been little progress is ascertaining Kalburgi’s killers.