Bombay High Court Grants Bail To Prime Accused In Govind Pansare Murder Case

The Kolhapur bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Virendra Tawade, Sharad Kalaskar and Amol Kale, all three prime accused in the murder case of slain communist leader Govind Pansare.

Single-judge Justice Shivkumar Dige orally pronounced the decision to grant them bail. However, a detailed copy of the order is yet to be made available.

According to the prosecution case, Tawade is one of the prime conspirators in the case, who had hatched the conspiracy for eliminating Pansare. The other two accused Sharad Kalaskar and Amol Kale too were booked for conspiring along with Tawade and also inviting youth against Pansare and other intellectuals.

Notably, Pansare was shot dead on February 16, 2015 along with his wife Uma, while the couple were on their way back home from the regular morning walk near their house in Kolhapur. While Pansare succumbed to the bullet injuries on February 20, 2015, his wife survived.

The investigation was initially conducted by Rajarampuri Police Station, Kolhapur and thereafter transferred to Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) but later transferred to the ATS in 2022.

During the course of investigation, the names of 12 accused were revealed. The SIT arrested 10 accused persons and two accused, namely Vinay Pawar and Sarang Akolkar, were alleged to be absconding.