Punalekar remanded in CBI custody again

Punalekar remanded in CBI custody again

Pune: A Special UAPA Court on Thursday again remanded Sanatan Sanstha lawyer Sanjiv Punalekar to police custody with the CBI in connection with Dr Narendra Dabholkar murder case. The agency had sought his custody after finding ‘incriminating’ documents on his laptops. Punalekar was arrested on May 25 along with his assistant Vikram Bhave from Mumbai. They were lodged at Yerwada Central Jail under judicial custody after expiry of their police custody on June 4. 

On Wednesday, the CBI submitted an application before the court of Special Judge RM Pande seeking his five days’ custody.  Punalekar’s defence lawyers Virendra Ichalkaranjikar and Dharamraj Chandel opposed the demand. However, the court remanded Punalekar to police custody till June 23.

Dabholkar folder found on laptop  
In the remand application, the CBI submitted, “During the investigation, it is found that Punalekar had differences with the rationalist and reformist activities of Dabholkar and CBI is able to recover one such letter dated 17.09.2012 written by accused Punalekar to Dabholkar. This indicates that accused Punalekar was opposed to Dabholkar. Sustained interrogation of Punalekar in police custody is required to confront him with the huge information/documents found from his laptops. His laptops contain a folder named ‘Dabholkar’ which contains lot of files related with Dabholkar and accused Punalekar has to be interrogated in this regard.” 

The agency also found one ‘incriminating’ letter from Punalekar  mentioning court proceedings of Nalasopara Explosive Case (of ATS, Maharashtra), passing some observations about the Judge etc. “It has mentioned about efforts being made to rope in 8 to 10 advocates for the work of Sanstha (Sanatan Sanstha). This letter mentions ‘Sadguru’. The CBI has to interrogate accused Punalekar as to who was the person whom he was reporting, who was his handler, and to know the higher level person in the organisation, which is exclusively in his knowledge. It is suspected that the higher level person is based at Goa and therefore accused Punalekar may be taken to some places including Goa to confront with the various persons. Further, the recovery of email in June, 2016 had revealed that even chargesheeted accused Dr Virendrasinh Tawde was directed from Goa to concentrate on Andhsharadha Nirmoolan Bill, leaving all other works, it may here be mentioned that headquarter of Sanatan Sanstha is at Fonda, Goa and there is likelihood of connection with headquarters in this murder case. The above said email is cited in the chargesheet.”

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