Pune (Maharashtra) : Welcoming the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI’s) move in arresting Hindu Janajagruti Samiti member Virendrasing Tawde, Hamid Dabholkar, the son of murdered rationalist and prominent anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar, said on Saturday that the investigation is now moving in the right direction, and added that the CBI should go to the root of the murder and dig up the nexus between right-wing organisations and the killers.
“I think it is a welcomed development and I now think the investigations are moving in the right direction..Had this been done before my father would be alive. Arrested person is from Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, we demand from CBI that the mastermind behind his murder should held and put behind bars as soon as possible,” Hamid told ANI.
“Not only this, these people were associated with Margao bomb blast 2009 in which NIA is investigating. If the NIA would have done a proper investigation in this then I think the murder of my father would have been avoided,” he added.
Virendra Tawde, a member of the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS), who was arrested yesterday for his alleged role in the murder of noted Pune-based rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013, would be produced before the sessions court in Pune today.
The arrest came nine days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at the residence of Tawde, who works as a medical officer for the Sanstha, and questioned him at the outfit’s ashram in Panvel.
Tawde’s arrest was the first by the central agency since it took over the probe in May 2014 on the directions of the Bombay High Court, following a PIL alleged that pro-Hindutva activists were involved in the killing.
Dabholkar was shot dead reportedly by two unidentified people near Balgandharva auditorium in Pune when he was out for a morning walk on August 20, 2013. The assailants fled on a two-wheeler.
The high court had transferred the probe to the CBI on May 9, 2014, after a PIL filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar, saying there was no headway even several months after the killing of Dabholkar. (ANI)