HC allows Dabholkar's daughter intervene in PIL for CBI probe

Mukta is seeking investigation by a Special Investigating Team, claiming the probe was not making headway for the past six months

The Bombay High Court today allowed Mukta Dabholkar, daughter of the slain rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, to intervene in a public interest litigation seeking CBI probe into the murder.

Mukta is seeking investigation by a Special Investigating Team, drawn from various probe agencies, claiming the probe was not making headway for the past six months.

Dabholkar, a well-known anti-superstition activist, was shot dead by unknown assailants in Pune on August 20 last year. No arrest has been made in the case so far by police.

The bench headed by Justice P V Hardas allowed the petition today. To the court's question about the status of the investigation, the government lawyer only said that Pune police were still probing the case.

Former journalist Ketan Tirodkar has filed the PIL seeking a CBI inquiry.

The crime was not against an individual but the ideology of the secular state. A fresh perspective was needed into the probe as it was not making headway for the past six months, Mukta's application said.

Dabholkar spent his life combating superstition and irrationality. His violent death was a reminder of the depths to which discourses around culture had fallen in the state, the application said.