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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Rajasthan tanker fire: Death toll rises to 19 as man succumbs to burns
Jaipur (PTI): The death toll in a tanker-fire incident in Rajasthan has gone up to 19 with another man succumbing to his severe burn injuries at the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) hospital here on Thursday.
SMS hospital superintendent Dr Sushil Bhati informed that one more death was recorded on Thursday, taking the total number of fatalities in the horrific incident to 19. "Currently, 11 people are undergoing treatment at the hospital," he said, adding that two or three of them are likely to be discharged on Thursday.
Lalaram (28), who died on Thursday, had 60-per cent burn injuries and was on a ventilator. Three more patients are on ventilator support. The body has been shifted to the hospital's mortuary for post-mortem. Lalaram's friend Ramavtar said the victim was a security guard in an IT company at the Mahindra SEZ. He was on his way to work on a motorcycle when he got trapped in the fire.
"He had a morning shift that day. He was a resident of Sanganer but had shifted to the Kanota area on the Agra highway sometime ago. He was on a motorcycle when the incident happened," Ramavtar said.
The victim was unmarried. Three people, who sustained injuries in the incident, died on Wednesday. An LPG tanker collided with a truck on December 20, sparking a massive fireball that turned a stretch of the Jaipur-Ajmer highway into an inferno. Eleven people had died on the day of the incident and four had succumbed to their injuries subsequently.
