Explosives case: Maharashtra ATS gets custody of two accused held for Gauri Lankesh's murder

Mumbai: A court in Mumbai on Wednesday remanded two persons, originally arrested in the murder case of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, in the custody of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in connection with the seizure of explosives from different parts of the state.

The accused, Sujeeth Kumar and Bharat Kurane, were arrested earlier by the Karnataka Police.

File image of Gauri Lankesh

The ATS brought them to Mumbai from Bengaluru and produced them before Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Padalkar. The court granted the ATS custody of the accused till 17 September.

Chief prosecutor Jaisingh Desai told the court that the names of the two came up during the questioning of other accused in the explosives seizure case. The ATS wanted to bring them face to face with the other accused and question them, he added.

Kumar and Kurane were present when the other accused conducted a reconnaissance, Jaisingh said. The prosecutor added that arms training was provided at a farm owned by Kurane.

Last month, the ATS had arrested Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar, Sudhanwa Gondhalekar, Shrikant Pangarkar and Avinash Pawar following the seizure of arms and explosives.

Their questioning led to the arrest of Vasudev Suryawanshi and Liladhar alias Vijay alias Bhaiyya Lodhi (32) on 8 September. Some of the accused were allegedly linked to radical Hindu groups, the ATS had said. Among other things, they were planning to target a western music festival in Pune, it had said.