The Magistrate court in Bengaluru sent the accused to five-day Special Investigation Team (SIT) custody on Friday in connection with journalist Gauri Lankesh murder case. Lankesh was murdered outside her home on September 5 last year by assailants who are yet to be identified.

The accused KT Naveen Kumar was arrested by the special investigation team on February 15 and was being questioned by SIT since then. He has been associated with right-wing groups and is also a leader of Hindu Yuva Sena. Acting on a tip-off, Central Crime Branch, arrested Kumar and recovered 15 rounds of cartridges from him.

He is suspected to have ferried the killer to Gauri Lankesh’s residence in RR Nagar on the night of her murder. He was seen in CCTV footage in RR Nagar locality multiple times on the night of the murder possibly conducting a recce of the location. Reportedly, he talked about his involvement in the murder case to his friends.

“We have video footage of a man riding the bike near Gauri’s place, on September 3 and 5, for what is clearly a recce.” He is wearing a full-face helmet but his nose is visible. We recreated the scene with Naveen on a similar bike. Everything – from his posture on the bike to the way he rides, to the nose – perfectly matches with CCTV footage,” said an official on his identification.

Earlier, he was sent to custody for eight days on March 2 during which Kumar accepted sheltering four people associated with a right-wing organization. The police had prepared sketches of the individuals with Kumar’s help.