Shrikant Pangarkar, the accused in the 2017 murder of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh, won the Jalna Municipal Corporation election in Maharashtra as an independent candidate and celebrated the victory with his supporters. Jalna is a city in the state’s Marathwada region.
Shrikant contested from Ward 13, where his rivals included candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties. He won by a margin of 2,621 votes. The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena did not field a candidate in the ward.
Ahead of the November 2024 Assembly elections, Shrikant had briefly joined the Shiv Sena. Following widespread public criticism, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde put his induction into the party on hold.
Gauri was murdered on September 5, 2017, by a team of 18 Hindutva loyalists led by Amol Kale. She was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar.
Shrikant was charged in 2021 alongside Amol (prime accused), Amit Degwekar, Sujith Kumar, Ganesh Miskin, Amith Badd, Bharath Kurane, Suresh HL, Rajesh Bangera, Sudhanva Gondalekar, Sharad Kalaskar, Mohan Nayak, Vasudev Suryavamshi, Manohara Edave, Naveen Kumar, and Rushikesh Deodikar.
A former Jalna Municipal Council member from the undivided Shiv Sena (2001–06), Shrikant later joined the right-wing Hindu Janajagruti Samiti after being denied a party ticket in 2011.
In August 2018, Shrikant was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) after crude bombs and weapons were seized from multiple locations across the state. He was booked under the Explosives Act, the Explosive Substances Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
In the Gauri Lankesh murder case, the Karnataka High Court granted him bail on September 4, 2024.
TNM had previously reported in a three-part series how Amol Kale, an engineer who became radicalised by Sanatan Sanstha’s literature, allegedly hatched the conspiracy to murder Gauri. Sanatan Sanstha is a Goa-based extremist Hindutva organisation. Amol planned Gauri’s murder and put together the team of 18 people who executed it.
Read the first story in the three-part series: Why Gauri Lankesh was assassinated: The story of an indoctrinated engineer.