The Bombay High Court on Tuesday suspended the life imprisonment sentence of Sachin Andure, a convict in the 2013 assassination of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, and granted him bail.
A division bench comprising Justices Sarang Kotwal and Ranjitsinha Bhonsale allowed Andure’s interim plea seeking relief pending his appeal against conviction. With bail already secured in a separate trial concerning the killing of activist Govind Pansare, Tuesday’s order clears the way for Andure to be released from custody. The High Court noted that a detailed copy of the written order was not immediately available.
Legal Journey And Previous Verdicts
Andure was sentenced to life in prison on May 10, 2024, alongside co-accused Sharad Kalaskar, after a sessions court determined that they were the assailants who shot Dabholkar. However, the trial court acquitted both individuals of charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Arms Act. Three other accused—Virendra Singh Tawde, Sanjiv Punalekar, and Vikram Bhave—were acquitted due to a lack of sufficient evidence.
Following the trial court ruling, Andure approached the High Court to challenge his conviction and filed an interim application seeking bail and the suspension of his life term. Meanwhile, Dabholkar’s daughter, Mukta Dabholkar, also submitted an appeal to the High Court challenging the acquittals and the exclusion of UAPA charges, contending that the murder was orchestrated as part of a broader conspiracy by right-wing extremists.
Background Of The Assassination
The 67-year-old founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an organization dedicated to eradicating social superstition, was gunned down by two motorcycle-borne assailants during a morning walk in Pune on August 20, 2013. The case was initially handled by local police before being transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2014 after Mukta Dabholkar petitioned the High Court. Prosecutors subsequently identified Andure as one of the two shooters on the motorcycle.
Dabholkar’s murder was the first in a series of similar attacks targeting rationalists and activists across western and southern India. Subsequent victims included Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in February 2015, scholar M.M. Kalburgi in Dharwad in August 2015, and journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru in September 2017.
