Gauri murder: Trial to begin from July 4

NT Correspondent
Bengaluru

Starting from July, the trial in the Gauri Lankesh murder case will be conducted on a day-to-day basis for a week every month.
This has been decided by the special court for Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act in Bengaluru. Accordingly, the first session of the five-day trial will be held from July 4 to 8.
The court ordered that the “special public prosecutor shall file a memo indicating the witnesses that he is going to examine during such a session of one week”.
Journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on September 5, 2017, by two bike-borne miscreants outside her residence in Rajarajeshwari Nagar. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the murder had arrested 17 of the 18 accused. Eleven of them are lodged in Parappana Agrahara central prison in Bengaluru while the remaining six are in Arthur Road Prison in Mumbai after Maharashtra police took them into custody in connection with the murders of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.
The accused have been charged with various sections of the Indian Penal Code — 302 (punishement for murder), 114 (abettor present when offence is committed), 118 (concealing design to commit offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 35 (when such an act is criminal by reason of its being done with criminal knowledge or intention) and provisions of the Arms Act and Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act (KCOCA). The court began the trial on May 27 (Friday).