Sullia man had vacated his clinic to provide shelter to Gauri killers?

Mangaluru, Jul 22: Sources privy to the Special Investigation Team probing into the murder of journalist-cum-activist Gauri Lankesh has said that Mohan Nayak, who was arrested as seventh accused earlier this week from his village of Sampaje, near Sullia in Dakshina Kannada district, had provided shelter to the killers.

50-year-old Nayak, a Naati Vaidya (a non-qualified doctor of sorts), ran an acupuncture clinic at Kumbalagodu in Bengaluru. He was arrested on Wednesday night, and produced before a city court which remanded him in judicial custody for six days.

The acupuncture clinic was run out of a rented room, which Mohan later vacated for the other accused in the case to stay in the run-up to Gauri’s killing, and returned to his village, the sources said.

Mohan is suspected to have handed over the 7.65mm gun to Parashuram Waghmore, resident of Sindagi, hours before the latter fired from it at Gauri in front of her residence in Rajarajeshwari Nagar on September 5, 2017.

SIT sources said Mohan was very close to Amol Kale, the Pune resident who is suspected to be one of the main conspirators in the killing. Mohan had lent his mobile phone to Kale.

Sleuths were led to Mohan by an entry in Kale’s diary, found in his Pune house. K T Naveen Kumar, the Maddur gunrunner who was the first to be arrested in the Gauri case, told his interrogators that Kale and Mohan held frequent closed door meetings. Mohan was in constant touch with Kale and other accused after Gauri’s killing too. He even met Kale once in Belagavi.

According to SIT sources, Mohan participated in several Hindutva meetings in Goa and Maharashtra. Quoting Sampaje residents, the sources said Mohan carried huge bags during his journeys to Belagavi and Goa. They said SIT sleuths will be taking Mohan to Sampaje, Kushalnagar and Belagavi soon.