Bengaluru: The Supreme Court, on Tuesday directed the Karnataka SIT, which investigated the Gauri Lankesh murder case to take over the probe into the killing of rationalist M M Kulburgi.

The Court was hearing a petition filed by Kalburgi’s wife Uma Devi Kalburgi, who in her plea had drawn parallel between her husband and killing sof rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and Communist leader Govind Pansare in Maharashtra and sought a SIT probe by a retired SC judge or a high court judge. She also urged the Apex Court to monitor the probe till it reaches its logical end. She specifically registered her disappointment over the fact that there was no progress in the probe held into her husband’s murder case which was conducted so far by the Karnataka police. In this regard, a bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran directed that the Karnataka High Court’s Dharwad bench should monitor the probe, reported Deccan Herald.

Kalburgi was killed in 2015 in Dharwad. The court had earlier sought to know if there was a “common thread” in murder cases of Communist leader Pansare and rationalist Dabholkar in Maharashtra, and Kannada writer Kalburgi and journalist-activist Gauri in Karnataka.

In Dabholkar’s case, the CBI had already filed a charge sheet in a Pune Court. In the case of Pansare, five persons have been arrested and the matter was pending before a court in Kolhapur.