Three years after anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar's murder, CBI arrests Sanatan Sanstha doctor

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested Virendra Tawade, a Sanatan Sanstha activist in connection with the murder of Narendra Dabholkar in 2013.

Virendra Tawde, a doctor, associated with rightwing Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, was arrested yesterday from his residence at Panvel in Raigad district of Maharashtra. During the search, the agency recovered documents and phones numbers and e-mails which were scrutinised.

He will be produced in a Pune court today. 

CBI sources said they had been questioning Tawade over the last few days to probe his role in the murder.

Anti-superstition activist Dabholkar, an Indian rationalist and author was shot dead by unidentified assailants while he was on a morning walk on the bridge near Omkareshwar temple in Pune on August 20, 2013.

He was murdered days after the Maharashtra government assured that it would introduce the anti-superstition Bill - opposed by many right-wing groups as "anti-Hindu." It was his campaign that led the state government to draft the Bill.

The CBI took over the case from Maharashtra Police and filed a First Information Report or FIR on May 9, 2014, on the orders of the Bombay High Court.