Accused in Lankesh case sold Patanjali products in Aurangabad

Rishikesh Dewerkar, arrested by Karnataka SIT in the journalist Gauri Lankesh murder, was living in central Maharashtra's Aurangabad city until 2016 and sold Patanjali products, the people who knew him said here on Friday.

The Special Investigation Team of Karnataka arrested him from Katras town near Dhanbad in Jharkhand on Thursday.

In Aurangabad, Dewerkar sold Patanjali products from a shop he had rented in M2 area here from local resident Jagdish Kulkarni.

According to Kulkarni, he ran the shop from 2014 to 2016. "He paid rent on time. Beyond that we had no interaction," he said.

In 2016, he shifted to a house owned by Yeshwant Shukla in the same area.

"The longest meeting I had with him was when he came to fianalise agreement for the house in February 2016," Shukla told PTI, describing him as taciturn.

"He said he wanted a house on the ground floor as his parents were old. He himself stayed there for only one and a half months," Shukla said.

"He then shifted to Solapur and his parents continued to live in the house till April 2019. He used to visit them for a day or a night. His parents did stitching work. Last year they shifted to Mumbai where their other son lives," he added.

"Dewerkar's involvement in the Gauri Lankesh case is a shock to all of us," Shukla added.

Dewerkar is the 17th accused to be arrested in the Lankesh murder case.

Lankesh, a firebrand journalist and writer, was shot dead in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017.

An official of the SIT said Dewerkar was suspected to be part of the conspiracy to kill Lankesh.