MUMBAI: It was around midnight on August 15, 2018, five years after rationalist Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead by two bike-borne assassins, when a Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) unit broke the case, almost by chance.
The ATS team was questioning Sharad Kalaskar, an accused detained in the ongoing inquiry into a haul of guns and ammunition at Nalasopara, when he reportedly told his interrogators that he and his colleague Sachin Andure had shot Dabholkar, stumping them. According to people acquainted with the Dabholkar murder inquiry, Andure was also detained by the ATS at the time.