The News Minute | February 21, 2015 | 02:28 pm IST
Anti-toll tax campaigner Govind Pansare was returning from a morning walk with his wife Uma Pansare, when masked assailants came on a motorcycle and fired shots at them. While Uma Pansare was hit by a bullet that fractured her skull, the 83-year-old veteran Communist leader was hit on the neck, below the chest and on the leg by three bullets, states a report by The Indian Express.
The incident took place on February 16 in Kohlapur, Maharashtra. And on February 21, he succumbed to his wounds.
Apart from the immediate public outcry against Pansare's murder, there has also been a comparison of his assassination with the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune in August 2013. 65-year-old Dabholkar, an anti-superstition activist, was shot dead by two youth on a motorcycle on the Omkareshwar bridge near Pune’s Shanivar Peth.
A report by The Times of India states that Additional director general of police (law and order) K L Bishnoi on Friday said that the police have found no clear direction to investigate the case and that the only similarity between Pansare and Dabholkar's attack is the "morning walk". He added that both the rationalists worked in different sections of society and the police cannot draw similarities between the two attacks.
A public interest litigation (PIL), which was filed before the Bombay High Court on Wednesday, claims that the state was aware of the threat to Pansare's life and says that the police should have prepared a threat perception report (TPR) along with monitoring his movements and cell phone records, states a report The Indian Express.
Filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, thePIL also draws similarities between Pansare and Dabholkar's attack, asking for a CBI inquiry into the former's murder. “There are many a similarities in both the cases, such as the timing of morning walk, use of motor-cycle, number of assailants being two; CCTV footage being unclear,” The Indian Express quotes Tirodkar as saying in the petition.
Tirodkar had also filed a PIL in the High Court after Dabholkar's murder seeking a CBI inquiry.
(Narendra Dabholkar)
The report also states that Tirodkar in his petition alleges that one individual who was arrested and later let off in the Dabholkar murder case 'is a conventional gun-runner from Satara and is in touch with police of all regions'. “In the Dabholkar assassination case, he helped the police to identify the buyer of the pistol that had similar features with the one used in the case,” the PIL claims.
A Hindustan Times report states that Pansare had addressed students at Shivaji University around two weeks ago. He met with protests from some students after he spoke against the glorification of Nathuram Godse.
He is also said to have received threats after he recently spoke at a programme on 26/11 attacks, where he made references to slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare's death. The CPI said that Pansare was under threat from "communal divisive forces" over his move to organize a discussion meeting of a book on Karkare, reports DNA.
After nine months of investigation into Dabholkar's murder by the Pune Police, which led to no significant development towards solving the case, the Bombay High Court in May 2014 transferred the case to the CBI.