Shrikant Pangarkar, accused of the 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, won the Jalna Municipal Corporation elections in Maharashtra as an independent candidate and celebrated the victory with his supporters. Jalna is a city in the Marathwada region of the state.
Shrikant contested from Ward 13, where his rivals included candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties. He won by a margin of 2,621 votes. Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde, did not field any candidate in the district.
Before the November 2024 Assembly elections, Shrikant briefly joined the Shiv Sena. Following widespread public criticism, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde suspended his joining the party.
Gauri was killed on September 5, 2017 by a team of 18 Hindutva loyalists led by Amol Kale. She was shot dead in front of her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bengaluru.
Shrikant was charged in 2021 along with Amol (main accused), Amit Degwekar, Sujith Kumar, Ganesh Miskin, Amith Badd, Bharath Kurane, Suresh HL, Rajesh Bangera, Sudhanva Gondalekar, Sharad Kalaskar, Mohan Nayak, Vasudev Suryavamshi, Manohara Edave, Naveen Kumar and Rushikesh Deodikar.
Shrikant, a former Jalna Municipal Council member of the undivided Shiv Sena party (2001-2006), later joined the right-wing Hindu Janajagruti Samiti after being denied a party ticket in 2011.
In August 2018, Shrikant was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) after crude weapons and bombs were seized from several places across the state. He was booked under the Explosives Act, Explosive Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
In the Gauri Lankesh murder case, she was granted bail by the Karnataka High Court on September 4, 2024.
TNM had earlier reported in a three-part series how Amol Kale, an engineer who was radicalized by Sanatan Sanstha literature, allegedly hatched the conspiracy to murder Gauri. Sanatan Sanstha is a Hindutva extremist organization based in Goa. Amol planned Gauri’s murder and assembled the team of 18 people who executed him.
Read the first story in the three-part series: .