Gauri Lankesh murder: Accused KT Naveen confesses to crime, says SIT
Bengaluru: The main accused in the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, KT Naveen Kumar, has confessed to the killing, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has reportedly claimed.
The police memo accessed by News18 states that Kumar recorded his statement, owning up to the murder. According to the confession statement, Kumar and his accomplice Praveen planned the murder outside Adi Chanchanagiri complex at Vijayanagara in the western part of Bengaluru.
Kumar took the police to both the crime spot and the place where he allegedly plotted her murder, the report added.
Police claim that Kumar has agreed to a lie detector test and he took them to crime spot using the same route he allegedly took on the night of murder, News18 added.
An officer of the SIT had earlier said that narcoanalysis test would be conducted on Kumar. "Though the court allowed us to conduct the narco test, or a lie-detector test, on KT Naveen Kumar on 12 March, the date and place for the same have not been fixed yet," SIT Investigation Officer MN Anucheth had told IANS.
Kumar was taken into custody on 3 March by the Karnataka SIT for questioning. He hails from Birur town in Chikkamagaluru district, about 250 kilometres west of Bengaluru, SIT Investigating Officer MN Anucheth said.
Lankesh, 55, the editor of Lankesh Patrike, was shot dead outside her residence in the city's southwestern suburb by unidentified assailants on 5 September last year.
The state government had set up the SIT to probe the journalist-activist's killing.
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Blinkit delivery executive halts late-night rat poison order, flags safety concerns
The event occurred at midnight, when the delivery executive was issued an order containing three packets of rat poison. According to his account shared later in a video, the timing of the order immediately raised concern. On reaching the delivery address, he found that the woman who had placed the order visibly distressed and crying.
Believing the situation required caution, the delivery executive chose not to hand over the items and spoke to the woman and tried to understand what she was going through, telling her that no problem justified harming oneself. During the conversation, he directly asked whether the poison had been ordered with the intention of ending her life.
Although the woman initially denied it, he continued to communicate with her and persuaded her to rethink. The woman cancelled the order, following a brief talk. The delivery executive later said in the video that the decision gave him a sense of comfort since he believed he had been able to prevent a potential tragedy.
After the video surfaced on social media, users praised the delivery executive for acting with care and responsibility. “Humanity at its best,” one user wrote, while another commented, “That’s not just a delivery guy, that’s a guardian angel in a green jacket.”
