Two people were today sentenced to life imprisonment by a Pune court for the 2013 murder of activist Narendra Dabholkar. The court acquitted three other accused in the case.

Reading out the order in a packed courtroom, Additional Sessions Judge (Special Court) P P Jadhav said that the prosecution had proved the charges of murder and conspiracy against Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar and they have been awarded life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Andure and Kalaskar had shot Dabholkar.

The court acquitted accused ENT surgeon Tawde, Sanjeev Punalekar and Vikram Bhave for want of evidence.

Narendra Dabholkar, who headed the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, allegedly by the members of a fringe group.

Dabholkar’s murder in Pune had been followed by the shooting of Govind Pansare in February 2015 and MM Kalburgi in Kolhapur in August the same year. Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru in September 2017.

Pune police initially probed the case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe in 2014 following a Bombay High Court, order and arrested Dr Virendrasinh Tawade, an ENT surgeon linked to the Hindu right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha, in June 2016.

According to the prosecution, Tawade was one of the masterminds of the murder.

Sanatan Sanstha, to which Tawade and some of the other accused were linked, was opposed to the work carried out by Dabholkar’s organisation, the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (committee for eradication of superstition, Maharashtra), it claimed.