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Sameer Gaikwad, a right-wing activist accused of being a “co-conspirator” in the 2015 murder of rationalist and author Govind Pansare, died in the early hours of Tuesday at his residence in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, officials said.

Gaikwad, 43, who was arrested in 2015 in connection with the killing and later granted bail in 2017, was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival, a police official said. Prima facie, the cause of death appears to be cardiac arrest, though the exact cause will be confirmed after the postmortem report, the official added, stating that nothing suspicious had been found so far.

Gaikwad was allegedly associated with Sanatan Sanstha. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to probe the case had arrested him in September 2015 and, in its chargesheet, described him as a “co-conspirator”, alleging that he and other Sanatan Sanstha activists were involved in eliminating Pansare.

The SIT had also conducted searches at Sanatan Sanstha’s ashram in Panvel, Navi Mumbai, as part of the investigation.

Pansare was shot at on 16 February 2015 in Kolhapur when he and his wife were returning home from their morning walk in the Samrat Nagar area.

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Two motorcycle-borne assailants fired multiple rounds at them before fleeing. Pansare succumbed to his injuries on 20 February 2015.

The case was initially registered at the Rajarampuri police station in Kolhapur before being transferred to the SIT under the supervision of the Additional Director General of Police (CID), Maharashtra.

Alleging lack of progress in identifying the shooters, Pansare’s family later sought transfer of the probe to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). On 3 August 2022, the Bombay High Court transferred the investigation to the ATS, observing that there had been “no headway” or “breakthrough” in the case.

According to officials, of the 12 accused identified so far, nine have been arrested, and four supplementary chargesheets have been filed.

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