Key accused in Govind Pansare murder case dies in Maharashtra's Sangli
Mumbai (PTI): Right-wing activist Sameer Gaikwad, accused of being a "co-conspirator" in the 2015 murder of rationalist and author Govind Pansare, died in Maharashtra's Sangli district in the early hours of Tuesday, officials said.
Gaikwad, 43, an alleged member of Sanatan Sanstha, was arrested in 2015 in the case. He was granted bail in 2017 and had been staying at his residence in Sangli.
He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival early on Tuesday, a police official said without giving more details.
Prima facie, Gaikwad died due to cardiac arrest, but police were waiting for the postmortem report to ascertain the exact cause of death, he said.
There is nothing suspicious, the official added.
Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015, in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur and succumbed to his injuries a few days later on February 20.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was subsequently formed to investigate Pansare's murder, arrested Gaikwad in the case in September 2015.
In its chargesheet, the SIT had mentioned Gaikwad as a "co-conspirator" and alleged that he, along with other Sanatan Sanstha activists, eliminated Pansare.
The SIT had also conducted raids at Sanatan Sanstha's ashram in Panvel, Navi Mumbai, in connection with the case.
Pansare and his wife were returning home from their morning walk in the Samrat Nagar area of Kolhapur when two motorbike-borne men fired multiple rounds at them before fleeing in 2015.
Initially, the Rajarampuri police station in Kolhapur handled the case.
The investigation was later transferred to the SIT under the supervision of the Additional Director General of Police (CID), Maharashtra.
Dissatisfied with the lack of progress in tracing the shooters, Pansare’s family had sought the case’s transfer to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
On August 3, 2022, the HC transferred the probe to the ATS, observing there was “no headway” or “breakthrough” in the case.
Of the 12 accused identified, nine have so far been arrested, and four supplementary chargesheets have been filed.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
