SIT recieves over 300 calls after announcing 10 lakhs Rs. reward for lead in Gauri Lankesh murder case

The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing into the murder of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, believes that the perpetrators were not from Bengaluru and have managed to evade roadblocks to exit the city. A team, dispatched on Sunday night, has been combing the border districts of Karnataka and Maharashtra to check whether the country-made pistol used to kill Gauri Lankesh was sourced from the region. Four 7.65 mm cartridges were recovered from the crime scene. Sources said the team is trying to track illegal gunrunners in Belagavi and Vijayapura to check on recent buyers, hoping it will develop into a concrete lead. The team is expected to move to Maharashtra soon, where they are likely to probe into similarities between the murder of Gauri Lankesh and rationalists Govind Pansare (shot dead in 2015) and Narendra Dabholkar (killed in 2013). Sleuths have already contacted the Maharashtra SIT that is probing the murder of Pansare. In keeping with the hypothesis that the accused were able to flee the city, the police have collected CCTV footage from toll booths at all entry and exit points and are in the process of analysing them. However, a senior official said that it was like seeing the footage without knowing what they were looking for. “There is no clear lead on the vehicle used by the assailants since the CCTV camera at Gauri Lankesh’s house has not captured the vehicle clearly,” a source said. Meanwhile, another team has been painstakingly combing footage of hundreds of cameras along the Gandhi Bazaar to R.R. Nagar route, which Gauri Lankesh took daily, to see if the attackers had followed her on dry run days. So far, however, a breakthrough continues to elude them. Over 300 calls to police Phones have been ringing continuously since the police announced the reward and published a number that people can call if they have information to share. Despite receiving over 300 calls, not one has led to any concrete actionable lead, sources said. “Most callers were trying to advice the police on the direction the investigation must take,” said an official.