'Training camp for terrorists who assassinated M M Kalburgi was held in Dakshina Kannada'

Newsroom, Jul 8: The final ‘training camp’ for the terrorists who assassinated rationalist thinker Prof M M Kalburgi around four years ago was organised in Dakshina Kannada district, according to the Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police. 

According to SIT sources, key suspect Praveen Prakash Chatur, who was arrested on May 31, took the police to a rubber plantation at Dharamsthala in the coastal district, last month and said that is where he was trained for the murder.

Chatur drove the motorcycle that took the shooter, Ganesh Miskin, to Kalburgi’s home on August 30, 2015.

The owner of the rubber plantation – businessman K. Ananth Kamath – is a known associate of the extremist Hindu group Sanatan Sanstha and its affiliate Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). He is even mentioned on the HJS website, as a “devout Hindu”.

When contacted Kamath, he said he had “no idea” about his estate being used for such training. “If I knew I would not allow it,” he said.

Kamath’s name has also come up in the investigation into the killing of Bangalore-based journalist Gauri Lankesh. Amit Degwekar, a Sanstha member arrested in the case, mention Kamath as being involved in the planning activities.

In the Lankesh case as well, several suspects have talked about attending a training camp at a rubber plantation in the Dharamsthala region. Chatur was reportedly taken the the plantation as the police hoped to find bullets or cartridges there, but failed to do so.

The Sanatan Sanstha and HJS have been linked to the murders of Kalburgi, Lankesh, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. The chargesheet in the Lankesh assassination refers to the killing as an “organised crime” by the Sanatan Sanstha. In his confession, Dabholkar’s shooter said a right-wing group had trained him in shooting, bomb-making and ideology in the days before the assassination.