Police arrest two in Goa for killing anti-superstition activist

The arrests could mark the first major breakthrough in the murder of Narendra Dabholkar who was murdered in August.

NEW DELHI // Police said yesterday they detained two men suspected of shooting dead an activist who campaigned in India against superstition and religious charlatanism.

The killing that shocked the nation and led hundreds of self-proclaimed rationalists to protest in Pune.

The suspects, both from Mumbai, were detained for allegedly firing four shots at Narendra Dabholkar as he was taking a morning walk on August 20 in Pune, police said, without identifying the men.

A witness described the motorcycle-borne assailants as being in their 20s.

Police tracked the suspects down to Goa and arrested them on Friday before transferring them to Pune for questioning, according to Inspector Rajendra Prabhudessai of Goa’s capital Panaji.

The arrests could mark the first major breakthrough in the case in more than three months. Dabholkar’s family has demanded that the case be taken over by the federal Central Bureau of Investigation. Police have given no information about a possible motive.

India has long held secularism as a keystone of its constitution — and a necessity for keeping the peace among its many cultures defined by caste, clan, tribe or religion, including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism.

Dabholkar, 68, a doctor-turned-activist, had received years of death threats and demands that he stop travelling to hundreds of villages across Maharashtra state to give lectures promoting rationalist thought and discouraging superstitions, religious extremism, black magic and animal or human sacrifice, according to colleagues in his organisation, the Maharashtra Blind Faith Eradication Committee.

Immediately after his killing, hundreds of students and anti-superstition activists marched through the streets of Pune, which is about 200 kilometres south-east of Mumbai.

Maharashtra’s government pledged to pass long-stalled legislation that Dabholkar had worked on to ban religious exploitation and fraudulent medical workers. Activists and scientists also urged the federal government to pass a bill.

* Associated Press