Bengaluru: In a major breakthrough, the Special Investigating Team of Karnataka police probing the sensational Gauri Lankesh murder case has arrested a key suspect in the case who was absconding.

The accused identified as Hrishikesh Devdikar alias Murali was nabbed by the police from Katras of Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on Thursday.

Hailing from Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Murali was named as the key conspirators/ recruiter in the Lankesh murder case.

He is accused of conspiracy, planning and recruting members to execute the murder plot. He will be produced before the judicial magistrate on Friday and his house is being searched for clues, said sources.

Jharkhand DGP KN Choubey is quoted in media saying that Murali was working in a petrol pump in Katras area of Dhanbad and was closely associated with the Sanathan Sanstha’s Hindu Janajagruti Samiti till around 2010.

He is regarded as a key member of the crime syndicate that killed rationalists and journalists in Karnataka — Narendra Dabholkar (69) in 2013, Govind Pansare (81) in 2015, and Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi (81) in 2015 — along with Virendra Tawade and Amol Kale.

While 18 persons have been arrested so far, Murali was named as the 18th accused in the chargesheet filed by the SIT in November 2018.

It may be recalled that senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on September 5, 2017. Six men affiliated to Sanatan Sanstha, a pro-Hindu group involved in this murder were also named as accused in writer MM Kalaburgi’s murder.