bengaluru journalistactivist gauri lankesh had noticed strangers hanging around near her house days before she was shot dead by unknown assailants but did not see it as a threat gauri visited her sister kavithas place on september 2 and talked about strangers loitering near her residence her mother indira revealed none of us including gauri took it seriously im not sure whether it were the same persons who killed her she said read gauri shot because of her ideology says familyhighlyplaced bengaluru police sources said gauri was shot with a 765mm pistol a similar weapon had been used in the killings of writer m m kalburgi rationalist narendra dabholkar and left leader govind pansare the ballistic reports are expected in a week the sources added two 765mm pistols were used in the three killings the criminal investigation department of karnataka and the maharashtra police had confirmed police sources said the murder weapon was not a revolver one thing is for sure its a pistol and not a revolver as thought earlier if a revolver was used there would be no cartridges left behind at the crime scene based on the size and shape of the bullets we have concluded that a 765mm pistol was used to kill gauri police sources saidread pm twitter dispute warped he also follows raga kejri bjpthe sources however said they are yet to firmly establish if it was a countrymade pistol if it was a countrymade pistol the assailant must have been wellversed in handling it they added usually magazines of countrymade pistols will not work quickly particularly while pumping bullets in quick succession the magazine gets jammed requiring the weapon to be reloaded also the pistol gets heated once the bullet is fired in this case the assailant used the weapon so confidently that he fired the bullets one after the other a senior police officer said adding that the assailant could be a contract killer but we have not been able to establish whether the shooter was alone or worked with others he said read blocknarendramodi has opposite effectthe special investigation team sit which is probing gauris murder visited her residence in rr nagar on thursday sit chief b k singh and his team arrived at the residence around 1pm and carried out preliminary investigations including collecting evidence and marking important clues such as bullet marks on walls singh was seen explaining the crime scene to his colleagues sit officials were seen clicking pictures of the bullet marks and the spot where gauri collapsed police said the team inspected the spot where gauri parked her car and sought to zero in on the places from where the assailant would have shot her the assailant shot gauri from within a distance of 10 feet an sit member said investigators also collected call record details cdr of gauris mobile phone and two landline phones in her office and at home between august 2016 and september 5 gauri had received or dialled around 650 numbers