Dismay over killing of top journalist
new delhi — The killing of an Indian journalist provoked outrage and anguish across the country on Wednesday, with thousands protesting what they saw as an effort to silence a critic of India’s ruling party.
Even as police promise to hunt down the assailants who gunned down Gauri Lankesh outside her Bengaluru home on Tuesday night, many said they feared the perpetrators of the attack — like so many others — would get away with impunity.
Spontaneous rallies erupted in cities and towns across India on Wednesday. Protesters demanded the government do more to protect free speech in the secular, South Asian democracy.
In the southern city of Bengaluru, thousands gathered for a public vigil and viewing of Lankesh’s body at Town Hall.
Weeping, they filed slowly past her glass-covered coffin. Some carried placards that read “I am also Gauri.”
Others held banners that said: “You can kill the person; but not her ideas,” and “Voices of dissent cannot be stifled by the barrel of the gun.”
Lankesh, 55, the editor and publisher of the Kannada-language Lankesh Patrike newspaper, was shot dead on Tuesday by unidentified assailants near her home in the southern city of Bengaluru.
She had parked her car outside her gate and was walking to the main entrance of her home when the attackers fired at least seven rounds, killing her, police said. The motive was not known. Lankesh spent decades with various media outlets before taking over the newspaper started by her father. She was a fierce advocate of secularism and opposed hardline groups associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In November, she was found guilty of defaming lawmakers from the BJP in a 2008 story. She said the case was politically motivated and vowed to challenge her conviction in a higher court.
Ananth Kumar, a federal minister in the Modi government, said the state government must arrest those behind the killing.
The state government in Karnataka, run by the Congress party, said it had set up a special investigations team to investigate and police were examining CCTV foot- age. M.N. Anucheth, a senior police official investigating the case, said Lankesh was shot in the head, neck and chest.
“This is an attempt to silence all of us — all of those who believe in democracy and decency,” Ramchandra Guha, a historian told the Indian Express newspaper.
Her killing was the latest in a string of similar attacks in recent years targeting writers, artists and scholars who faced a backlash for criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government or the BJP.
“The silencing of a journalist in this manner has dangerous portents for Indian democracy,” said Shobhana Jain, the president of Indian Women’s Press Corps.
In 2015, scholar Malleshappa M. Kalburgi was shot dead at his Bengaluru home, following death threats from right-wing groups after he criticised superstitious beliefs by majority community.
Earlier that year, Indian writer
The series of killings of rationalists, free thinkers and journalists in the country has created an atmosphere that dissent, ideological differences and divergence of views can endanger our lives Sonia Gandhi, Congress president
The us mission in India joins advocates of press freedom in India and world-wide in condemning the murder of respected journalist Gauri Lankesh in bengaluru US Embassy statement
We urge the Karnataka government to probe the murder of well known journalist Gauri Lankesh with full seriousness, take the case to its conclusion, arrest the killers and punish them. Ananth Kumar, senior BJP leader and Union Minister
The present government, the bJp or any of its organisations have no connection with the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh. Nitin Gadkari, Shipping and Water Resources Minister
The silencing of a journalist in this manner has dangerous portents for Indian democracy. Shobhana Jain, Indian Women’s Press Corps
This is an attempt to silence all of us — all of those who believe in democracy and decency. Ramchandra Guha, a historian
We will continue to speak on her behalf and ours. They cannot silence us all. Indian Writer’s Forum
and anti-superstition crusader Govind Pansare was shot dead while taking a walk with his wife near their home in western Maharashtra state. And in another daytime attack in 2013, two assailants shot anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar dead while he was out for a walk in the Maharashtra city of Pune.
On Wednesday, the Indian Writer’s Forum called Lankesh’s murder “a chilling continuation” of the killings of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi and pledged to continue Lankesh’s fight against the “haters of free speech.”
Police have arrested a suspect in Pansare’s murder who has been released on bail. Another suspect is in custody in the Dabholkar case. But no one has yet been prosecuted in any of the three cases.
“We will continue to speak on her behalf and ours. They cannot silence us all,” the Forum said in a statement. Some said they feared the killing was evidence that the space for democratic opinion was shrinking in India.
The message is, “if you do not fall in line, you will be executed,” said Ananya Vajpeyi of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. “Gauri Lankesh’s murder last night was more than the killing of an individual; it was an assault on the freedom of the press, on the right to dissent and on democratic citizenship.” — Reuters, AP