Pune: Hundreds of activists, intellectuals, leaders of left parties and common citizens came together in Pune on Wednesday to condemn the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home on Tuesday night.
Carrying handmade posters bearing the legend ‘I am Gauri Lankesh’, the demonstrators gathered near S.P. College on Tilak Road. They blamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for fostering a climate of “cultural terrorism”.
The protesters also included activists from the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) founded by the late Narendra Dabholkar.
ADVERTISEMENT
During the two-hour protest, members of socialist parties and left-leaning outfits like Lokayat and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) accused the Modi government of deliberately stifling dissent and failing to prosecute agents of intolerance.
“The BJP has come to power with the objective of subverting the Indian Constitution … anybody seen opposing the RSS thought and ideology is promptly hounded,” said eminent writer-editor and septuagenarian activist Vidya Bal, remarking that under the present government, women in the country were not safe, and women journalists even less so.
Lankesh’s killing is not the murder of an individual, but a violent attack on democracy, said Sambhaji Brigade leader Santosh Shinde.
ADVERTISEMENT
The protesters said the murder echoed the killings of Dr. Dabholkar, veteran Communist leader Govind Pansare and scholar M.M. Kalburgi.
“Radical right-wing elements and Hindutva fundamentalists are able to unleash a reign of terror under the Modi government,” alleged CPI (M) leader Ajit Abhyankar. He also accused the BJP government of deliberately dragging their feet in the investigations into the Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi murders.