Pune: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday submitted in a special court a list of 32 witnesses in connection with the murder case of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
As the charges in the case have already been framed, the prosecution has earlier submitted a list of 13 documents, including the ‘spot panchnama’, ‘inquest panchnama’, seizure of clothes and articles of the deceased, and various other documents to the court, considered evidence in the case. However, the defence has refused to admit this list of documents.
“Today, we submitted a list of 32 witnesses before the Additional Sessions Judge (special court judge) S.R. Navandar and the matter has been posted for further proceedings on October 29,” said Prakash Suryawanshi, special public prosecutor of the CBI in the case.
Meanwhile, the defence moved an application before the court and demanded some documents, such as the photos of the crime scene of the first day, compact disk (CD) of the post-mortem of Dabholkar and X-ray plates.
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Dabholkar (67), who headed the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an anti-superstition outfit, was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, allegedly by members of a right-wing extremist group.
The CBI has been conducting a probe into the case, which was earlier with the Pune police.
Virendra Sinh Tawde, Sachin Andure, Sharad Kalaskar, Sanjeev Punalekar, and Vikram Bhave are the five accused in the case.
The court had earlier framed the charges against Tawde, Andure, Kalaskar, and Bhave under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 34 (common intention), relevant sections of the Arms Act, and section 16 of the stringent UAPA) (punishment for the terrorist act).
Besides, charges were framed against Punalekar under IPC section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offender).
(PTI)