Sanatan Sanstha members planned Gauri Lankesh's murder for 5 years, reveals SIT

The Special Investigations Team (SIT) investigating activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh's murder said in its chargesheet that Sanatan Sanstha was involved in her shooting.

The SIT submitted a 9,235–page chargesheet to the Principal Civil and Sessions court in Bengaluru on Saturday.

The chargesheet went on to say that the plan to kill Lankesh was on for five years and she was targeted for no apparent reason by the Sanatan Sanstha. Lankesh was vocal about her anti-Hindutva ideologies which might have rubbed Sanstha off in a wrong way. 

"The killer and the killed have no personal or any other enmity. Why she was killed? Because she believed in a certain ideology, she wrote and spoke on that. So, it must be an ideology and it must be an organisation,"  S Balan, Special Public Prosecutor was quoted as saying by PTI.

Lankesh, the editor of Lankesh Patrike, was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home by unknown assailants in September, last year.

According to NDTV, the SIT has requested permission to look further into the case. At the moment, 18 people have been accused in connection to the murder. It is believed that the Sanstha is also behind the murders of Kalburgi, Dabholkar, and Pansare.