Busted! The Delhi High Court strongly questioned the lack of empirical evidence for these claims, pointing out that the government’s decision to bury them inside was a sensitive law-and-order call that could not be challenged over a decade later on mere “personal views.”

Background

On September 24, 2025, the Delhi High Court heard a PIL seeking the removal of the graves of two Kashmiri separatist leaders: Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhatt and Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru. Both were sentenced to death and executed in Tihar Jail – Guru in February 2013 and Bhatt in February 1984. They were both buried in the jail premises after performing the last rites according to the Islamic principles, a sensitive decision taken by the government to prevent law-and-order disturbances that may have arisen from public burials.

The petition, filed by Hindu right-wing organisation ‘Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh’ argued that Bhatt and Guru, acting under the influence of “extremist Jihadi ideology,” orchestrated acts of terrorism that gravely threatened India’s sovereignty. The Sangh President, Jitendra Singh Vishen, had previously written to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, urging them to shift the graves “to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean or to a secret place in the jungles of Amazon” in order to curb “Jihadi mentality” and free the “holy land of India” from the graves, dargahs, and mausoleums of terrorists.

Their plea sought directions to the authorities to remove the graves from Tihar or, as an alternative, to relocate the mortal remains to a secret location to prevent “glorification of terrorism.”

What is the Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh? What purpose does its petition serve? And what larger narrative does it seek to construct? The answers begin to emerge once we look closely at the claims made in their plea.

Claim #1:

The presence of these graves, the petition stated, has turned Tihar jail into a site of “radical pilgrimage” where extremist elements gather to pay homage and venerate convicted terrorists.

Busted – a wild claim without evidence!

In the aforementioned letter, Vishen wrote that the two convicts have become “heroes of the society with a jihadi mindset” and are worshipped as religious leaders by young men who bow before their graves. “People of Jihadi society make fun of the law and order of the country by doing criminal activities day in and day out to offer prayers at the graves of the above two terrorists, and are also popularizing Central Jail Tihar as the graveyard/mausoleum/dargah of the above two terrorists,” the letter claims.

The Delhi High Court pressed the petitioner to produce data showing that people visit the graves to pay homage. Observing that no material had been produced to support the claim aside from stray social media posts, the Court asked, “Where is the empirical data? We cannot act on news clippings.”

Claim #2:

The construction and continued existence of the graves inside a state-controlled prison, counsel for the petitioner argued, was a ‘health hazard’ and a ‘nuisance’ as people are committing crimes to go to the jail and pay homage. 

Busted – legally and factually wanting! 

The Court rejected the argument that there was a ‘nuisance’ within the meaning of Section 398 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act (1957). Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya said, “This provision is made for any kind of nuisance to be removed. Not for the removal of a grave if that grave has been put in with the consent of the authority which owns the land. Jail is not a public place. Jail is a place owned by the State established for a specific purpose of incarceration.”

The Court further emphasised that the government’s action to bury the bodies within the prison was based on a sensitive political and law-and-order situation. The Court could not overturn a policy decision made by the State in an area of its specific and sensitive competence, especially not 12 years later and on unsubstantiated grounds.

Claim #3:

 The graves are unlawful and violate Delhi Prisons Rules 2018, which states that the remains of executed prisoners must be disposed of in a manner that prevents glorification and maintains prison discipline, argued the petition.

Busted – no law prohibits cremation or burial inside the jail!

The Bench corrected the misinterpretation of Rules 895 to 897, remarking that, “if a body has to be transported outside the prison, it has to be done with all solemnity. It doesn’t say that each body has to be taken outside prison.”

Claim #4:

The existence of the graves not only “undermines national security and public order,” but also “sanctifies terrorism in direct contravention of the principles of secularism and rule of law under the Constitution of India,” the petition states.

Busted – no constitutional rights or fundamental rights infringed!

The Court dismissed such a broad constitutional claim. “Tell us which law has been infringed and which fundamental rights of yours have been infringed by this. Something you wish cannot become the subject matter of a PIL,” the Court said, underscoring that the judiciary’s role is to address rights and statutes, not to legislate on personal views. “I like this, you like something else. These are not matters to be taken in courts.”

The High Court further maintained that such policy decisions lay with the government, not the judiciary. “Government decided to have the burial in jail keeping these issues in mind. Can we challenge that 12 years later?” the Bench asked.

“Somebody’s last rites are to be respected.”

Pattern of Post-Mortem Erasure

The petition frames its demand for grave removal as a continuation of an “established state practice,” asking the court to treat the graves of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt the same way as those of Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Memon, “where every precaution was taken to prevent glorification.”

However, these earlier episodes do not add up to a clear, uniform practice, but a patchwork of administrative choices driven less by due process and more by political spectacle. Administrative powers, court orders and enforcement measures are deployed unevenly, creating a de facto policy that singles out sites linked to Muslim history for agitation, removal, demolition or public shaming.

The petition’s insistence the state follows an “established practice” is undercut by its own example. In September 2022, BJP MLA Ram Kadam shared photos showing marble slabs and LED lighting “adorning” the grave of 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon. A political row erupted: the BJP accused the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition and Shiv Sena leadership of having “beautified” the grave and warned it could become a ‘mazar;’ Shiv Sena leaders countered that the cemetery was privately managed and charged the BJP with trying to divert attention and inflame communal tensions ahead of civic polls. The episode illustrates how these disputes are rarely about procedure, law, or even history – rather, they are exercises in narrative-building and political opportunism.

The same year, a few months later, the spotlight shifted from Mumbai to Satara where the administration demolished structures around the 17th-century tomb of Afzal Khan, the Adil Shahi general slain by Chhatrapati Shivaji. Officially, the drive was framed as the removal of “unauthorised constructions,” with Hindu nationalist groups alleging that the Hazarat Mohammad Afzal Khan Memorial Society was expanding the tomb and glorifying an “enemy of Swaraj” in “Shivaji’s own land.” The demolition was carried out on the 363rd anniversary of Khan’s death and was seen as a major “win” for the Hindutva groups. The Supreme Court later sought reports on whether due process had been followed, but by then the demolition was over. Again, we see how the graves, memory, and history of Indian Muslims are but props in electoral theatre.

In March 2025, following the release of Bollywood film Chhava, a far-right campaign demanded the demolition of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s tomb in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar with VHP-Bajrang Dal warning of a “Babri-like” repeat if the tomb was not removed. The agitation set off communal riots in Nagpur, leaving over 30 injured and 40-year-old welder Irfan Ansari dead.

Is it possible to tell history as the story of one side, while erasing the other? What happens when stories are pared down to black and white, heroes and villains, holy and savage, us and them? Do they still hold memory, or do they begin to serve a purpose beyond remembering? When history is stripped of its layers, nuance, and its many voices, when what remains is defaced textbooks and demolished tombs, are we left with memory — or with propaganda?

Conclusion

The Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh has been party to over 170 cases linked to Hindu majoritarian causes across the country, including the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. Its litigation is driven by an ideology of historical revisionism – recasting India’s past as a story of continuous “foreign aggression” by Muslims and Christians, against the “native” Hindus (a claim categorically debunked by the Indo-Aryan Migration Theory). The purpose is to erase every trace of “foreign” (“enemy”) religious groups in order to establish the Hindu Rashtra.

In the end, demands for post-mortem erasure are not grounded in law, empirical evidence, or constitutional principle. They are acts of disinformation and political theatre, designed to delegitimise the cultural and historical existence of India’s largest religious minority. The campaign to target graves of Indian Muslims – rulers or convicts (or, most frequently, of ordinary citizens and local communities) – is a campaign to deny dignity even in death, and to eternally remember the deceased, and by extension their entire community, as the “perpetual other.”

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this Hate Buster has been worked on by Raaz)

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The post The Politics of Memory: Controversy over graves of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This is not only a vindication of CJP’s relentless media watchdog efforts but also an institutional acknowledgment that prime-time news debates can fuel communal hatred when stripped of neutrality and balance.

The Spark: Bahraich Violence and its media afterlife

The case traces back to events of October 13, 2024, when communal violence erupted in Bahraich’s Maharajganj area during a Durga Puja immersion procession. Loud music played near a mosque led to clashes, gunfire, and the death of 22-year-old Ram Gopal Mishra, sparking retaliatory violence across the area. Shops, homes, hospitals, and vehicles were vandalised or set ablaze.

Just two days later, India TV aired Coffee Par Kurukshetra, ostensibly to discuss the incident. But instead of sober reportage, the show sensationalised the tragedy, demonised Muslims, and presented the violence as part of a larger “civil war” allegedly being prepared by Muslims against Hindus.

The episode was hosted by Sourav Sharma, with panellists including Professor Sangeet Ragi, Pradeep Singh, and Shantanu Gupta — all of whom used the platform to make sweeping, inflammatory claims against Muslims.

The complete complaint may be read here.

The Complaint

On October 21, 2024, CJP filed a complaint, later escalated on November 6, 2024, underlining the show’s dangerous narrative and violation of broadcasting standards.

CJP pointed to several troubling aspects:

• Loaded language and visuals: The anchor introduced the show with terms like “stone-pelter army”, “extremist Muslims”, “civil war” and “conspiracy”. Aggressive visuals and background music heightened the fear-driven narrative.
• Vilification of Muslims: The broadcast portrayed Muslims as perpetual aggressors and “outsiders,” even invoking Partition to argue Hindus had historically suffered because of Muslims.
• Misuse of religious practices: The Azaan was singled out as disruptive; panellists questioned why Hindus should tolerate it. Muslim festivals were painted as threats to Hindu ways of life.
• Distortions of historical figures: Gandhi and Ambedkar’s words were misquoted or wrenched out of context to argue that they too had warned against Muslims.
• No counter-voices: No Muslim speakers or neutral voices were invited. The discussion was entirely one-sided, with the host tacitly endorsing the communal tone.
• Dangerous calls to action: Guests openly suggested Hindus should “come out with sticks” to defend themselves, with rhetoric escalating to cosmic metaphors of “gods versus demons.”

CJP stressed that airing such a programme without any verified police investigation or neutral reporting amounted to spreading disinformation, promoting hostility, and abandoning journalistic neutrality.

The Broadcaster’s Defence: Freedom of press or abdication of duty?

India TV, in its reply dated November 5, 2024, defended the programme by arguing:

• The show was live, unscripted, and based on free debate; responsibility lay with guests, not the broadcaster.
• The channel did not endorse guest views, which were “diverse perspectives.”
• Freedom of the press under Article 19(1)(a) protected the airing of controversial opinions.
• CJP’s complaint had “selectively quoted” panellists and distorted context.

India TV insisted the host had asked probing questions — such as whether Ram Gopal’s removal of a flag justified his killing — and claimed that presenting historical parallels and references to riots was legitimate.

The Hearing: CJP vs. India TV

The matter was heard by NBDSA on May 29, 2025. CJP reiterated that the show, aired at a time when no official police findings were available, had irresponsibly created an “us vs. them” dichotomy, depicted Muslims as violent conspirators, and stripped the broadcast of neutrality.

The broadcaster doubled down, arguing that controversial views cannot be censored in a democracy, and the complainant had failed to show factual misquotations.

NBDSA’s Findings: A one-sided, communal narrative

After reviewing the broadcast and submissions, NBDSA made several critical findings:

1. Deliberate theme and panel selection

• • The broadcaster had pre-selected a divisive theme and only invited speakers supporting that narrative.
  • No dissenting or balancing voices were included, making the debate fundamentally biased.

The order noted “The Authority found that a particular theme was chosen and thereafter only those persons who have strong views in support of that theme were invited to express their views.”

2. Violation of neutrality

• • Anchors are obliged to moderate and prevent communal provocation.

The order noted “The broadcaster did not include the speakers who could express other side of the picture, and thus the discussion was not balanced and was one-sided. This is clear violation of principle of neutrality under the Code of Conduct. The broadcaster is advised to have such discussions in the programmes keeping in mind the principles of neutrality.”

The Order: Strong directions against India TV

NBDSA’s order issued the following directions:

• Content removal: India TV must delete the impugned broadcast from its website, YouTube channel, and all online links. Written confirmation of compliance must be submitted within 7 days.
• Institutional circulation: The order will be circulated among all NBDA members, Editors, and Legal Heads.
• Public record: The order will be hosted on NBDSA’s website, included in its Annual Report, and released to the media.

The Authority clarified that while its findings apply to broadcasting standards, they do not determine civil or criminal liability — keeping the scope strictly within media regulation.

The order noted that “NBDSA further also directed the broadcaster to remove the videos of the impugned broadcasts, if still available from the website of the channel, or YouTube, and remove all hyperlinks, including access, which should be confirmed to NBDSA in writing within 7 days of the Order.

NBDSA decided to close the complaint with the above observations and inform the complainant and the broadcaster accordingly.

NBDSA directs NBDA to send:

• A copy of this Order to the complainant and the broadcaster;

• Circulate this Order to all Members, Editors & Legal Heads of NBDA;

• Host this Order on its website and include it in its next Annual Report and

• Release the Order to media.”

Why this is a victory

The importance of this order lies in:

• Explicit recognition of one-sided narratives: The order highlights how “debates” can be structured to push communal agendas by excluding balancing voices.
• Anchor accountability: By holding the host responsible for failing to intervene, the NBDSA sets a precedent that anchors cannot hide behind guest opinions.
• Content removal, not just warning: The directive to remove all online traces of the show is stronger than usual, signalling zero tolerance for such broadcasts.
• Validation of civil society monitoring: CJP’s meticulous monitoring, complaint drafting, and legal follow-through stand vindicated, showcasing the role of civil society in holding powerful broadcasters to account.

Conclusion

The NBDSA’s decision reaffirms that freedom of the press cannot be a licence to vilify minorities or erode communal harmony.

For CJP, this win represents the power of consistent vigilance, evidence-based complaints, and commitment to secular values. At a time when hate speech in mainstream media is often normalised, this order proves that institutions can still deliver accountability when pushed with precision and persistence.

This is, without doubt, a small but vital step towards reclaiming media as a forum for truth, balance, and harmony — not hate.

The complete order may be read here.

Image Courtesy: jiotv.com

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The post NBDSA pulls up India TV for communal, one-sided broadcast; upholds CJP complaint against broadcast appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The old-timers, from the chief sub-editors to the linotype operators in the printing section, spoke of him with a reverence usually reserved for mythical heroes. They would lower their voices, as if sharing a sacred secret, and recount tales of a man whose courage and conviction had not only defined the paper’s finest hour but had also reshaped the very landscape of Indian journalism.

I was only 27 then, younger than he had been when he took the helm. For the first forty-five days of my tenure, I found myself shouldering the responsibilities of the editor, R.K. Mukker, who was away in Punjab for his daughter’s wedding.

The weight of the chair felt immense, not just because of the responsibility, but because I was acutely aware of the giant who had occupied it before me. As a Malayali and, like him, a chain-smoker, my colleagues were quick to draw comparisons. “You remind us of George Saheb,” they would say, a compliment that was both flattering and daunting. It was an impossible standard to live up to, for I knew him only as a legend, a byline from a storied past.

This burgeoning curiosity compelled me to seek him out. During a leave trip to Kerala, I made a pilgrimage to the Indian Express office in Kochi. The office, perched near the coast, carried the distinct, briny scent of the sea and drying fish—a sensory detail that has remained etched in my memory.

I was nervous, expecting perhaps a brush-off from a journalist of his stature. Instead, I was met with immense warmth. He greeted me not as a stranger, but as a colleague from a shared alma mater. His memory was sharp; he inquired about old comrades from The Searchlight. We spoke of Thampy Kakanadan, the writer he had brought to Patna as an assistant editor, tracing his subsequent journey to Indian Airlines.

In that small, fish-smelling office, the legend began to transform into a person—approachable, articulate, and genuinely interested.

Inspired, I returned to Patna and wrote a long, reflective piece about him, which I promptly sent his way. He acknowledged it with a gracious thank you. Years later, when a brief biographical note appeared on Wikipedia, I felt a quiet pride seeing my article listed among the write-ups on him. It was a small, invisible thread connecting my journalistic journey to his.

Our paths crossed again many years later in Chandigarh. My editor, H.K. Dua, called me to his room to introduce a fellow Malayali. It was George. By then, we had been both part of the Indian Express family, he in the South and I in the capital, so the recognition was mutual. Our conversation turned personal.

I mentioned that my younger sister was married to a man from Thumpamon, and that the family had immediately pointed out a connection to him. I stumbled, trying to articulate the exact familial link. With a characteristic wave of his hand and a voice loud enough for Mr. Dua to hear, he clarified, “We are relatives, as are all Syrian Christians. If any two of them talk for two minutes, they will find they are relatives.”

It was a typical George remark—dismissive of trivialities, yet profoundly affirming of a shared cultural identity. He was returning from Himachal Pradesh and had dropped in on Mr. Dua, another link in the intricate chain of Indian journalism. That was to be our last meeting.

Yet, our intellectual engagement continued. Once, deeply troubled by his stance on a particular issue, I felt compelled to respond. Under the pseudonym ‘Bharat Putra,’ I penned an open letter to him, critiquing his position. I sent it off, half-expecting, half-dreading a fiery rebuttal. But silence was his reply. Perhaps he saw through the pseudonym; perhaps he believed the argument did not merit one. I never knew.

The stories of his time at The Searchlight, however, were his true monument. My colleagues would recount, with undimmed fervour, how under George’s leadership, the paper became the unflinching voice of the people. When students across Bihar rose in protest against fee hikes and soaring prices, The Searchlight stood with them, its coverage bold and uncompromising.

The defining moment came during a violent Patna bandh. Instead of retreating, George devoted the entire newspaper to a saturation coverage of the agitation. The presses ran overtime, and the print order soared past one lakh copies—a staggering, unprecedented figure for that era.

The establishment, led by Chief Minister K.B. Sahay, could not let this defiance stand. George was arrested under the draconian Defence of India Rules. What followed was a spectacle that entered the annals of journalistic folklore.

The eminent V.K. Krishna Menon, a national figure, air-dashed to Patna to personally argue for George’s bail before the High Court. The court premises swelled with a crowd never seen before, a sea of silent supporters bearing witness. George’s release was a triumph, marking him as the first editor to be arrested—and vindicated—in independent India. Even from his prison cell in Hazaribagh, the journalist in him could not be silenced; he authored a penetrating booklet on the student unrest.

The political cost for Sahay was severe; he was trounced in the subsequent elections in 1967 from both Patna and Hazaribagh. Overnight, TJS George was a national hero. Yet, his principled stand also spelled the end of his Patna chapter. The management, fearing further reprisals, had overruled his instruction to keep the editorial column blank until his release. For George, compromise was a language he did not speak, and he moved on.

His was a restless, visionary spirit. After his foundational years in India, which began under the tutelage of another remarkable Malayali, S. Sadanand of the Free Press Journal in Bombay, he looked east. In Hong Kong, he conceived and founded Asiaweek, a magazine modelled on TIME and Newsweek but with a crucial difference: an Asian soul.

In many ways, his magazine surpassed its American rivals in its nuanced, authoritative coverage of the continent. George’s reputation was now international. A shrewd businessman as well as an editor, he understood the economics of publishing. When he eventually sold the magazine, he secured not just his legacy but also his fortune.

His return to India saw him join the Indian Express as Editorial Advisor. When the group split and the southern editions became The New Indian Express, George was their pillar of strength. His stature was such that he was granted a unique privilege: his personal column ran on the front page, a boldface declaration of his importance.

Even more remarkably, he was permitted to take positions that sometimes diverged from the paper’s official editorial line—a testament to the immense trust and respect he commanded. From my desk on the edit page in Delhi, where we shared content with the southern editions, I would often notice this delicate dance of opinions. Readers adored him for his fearless candour, and his bosses knew better than to interfere. It was in these years that the newsroom, in a mix of affection and awe, began calling him the “Holy Cow of the Express.” He had a good command of Malayalam also.

His writing was as prolific as it was profound. His Handbook for Journalists became a Bible in journalism schools, shaping the ethics and craft of generations of reporters. As a biographer, he combined elegant prose with penetrating insight, producing acclaimed portraits of complex figures like V.K. Krishna Menon, the actress Nargis, his mentor Pothen Joseph, and the celestial vocalist M.S. Subbulakshmi. His scholarly works on Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore and the rise of Islam in the Philippines were extraordinary achievements, demonstrating a Malayali journalist’s ability to dissect foreign societies with rare authority and understanding.

TJS George, who once wrote under the simple, powerful byline “GOG,” did not just practice journalism; he was its very embodiment. The saying goes that one has ink in their blood; for George, it was printing ink that coursed through his veins. He was not merely an editor; he was an institution—a beacon of intellectual courage, clarity of thought, and unyielding conviction.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post TJS George: Ink in His Veins And Fire in His Pen appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This excerpt, the fourth and the last d in a series of four that Sabrangindia is publishing, looks at the methodology employed by the conspirators and killers of four rationalists, including Gauri Lankesh. The editors remain thankful to the author and to Westland Books for permission to publish this excerpt.

CHAPTER 20

The Nameless Group

In 1986, the Kannada novelist, U. R. Ananthamurthy wrote a nuanced essay about religion and superstition titled “Why Not Worship in the Nude?” (Its title is a reference to a controversial Hindu sect whose adherents pray unclothed.) The essay teems with complexities and questions, including the following: “Haven’t I become what I am by de-mythifying, even desecrating, the world of my childhood? As a boy growing up in my village, didn’t I urinate stealthily and secretly on sacred stones under trees to prove to myself that they have no power over me?”

The essay was little known until June 2014, when M. M. Kalburgi referred to the quoted passage in a speech. This time it landed in a political climate that hungers to be offended, and this passage of Kalburgi’s speech attracted wide media attention. But the media (including Sanatan Sanstha’s daily newspaper) immediately got two things very wrong: first, it was reported as Kalburgi describing his own childhood experience, not referring to Ananthamurthy; second, it was reported that he’d urinated not on sacred stones but on Hindu idols, a far more grievous act of desecration. Some even claimed that Kalburgi had urged his audience to urinate on idols. A brief, contextless video clip of this bit of Kalburgi’s speech played repeatedly even on mainstream TV news channels and circulated widely online.

It was this episode—this garbled reporting of a literary reference that Kalburgi made once—that motivated his assassins to murder him, the SIT found. The killers didn’t care about, and never read, the hundred books he wrote. They were indifferent to his stance on the Lingayat issue. His entire life’s work and thought were reduced for them to this one misunderstood moment, then whipped up into an offense so intolerable that they could not permit him to live.

Dabholkar and Pansare seem to have been murdered for more obvious reasons: their insistent campaigns against superstition, which right-wing Hindu groups saw as a direct threat to their religion and culture. But why did they murder Gauri?

In India it is common for police complaints to be filed against people for “hurting religious sentiments,” a phrase that is perhaps unique to India and that is frequently invoked in the news media. The relevant law, Section 295A, is obviously well meaning: religion is a volatile subject in India, so a disincentive to needless religious provocation seems wise. In practice, though, Section 295A seems to have encouraged a very vocal minority from all religions to develop a hair-trigger sensitivity to any potential insult (including satire, legitimate criticism, unintended implications, and innocent misstatements), and even to seek out opportunities to be offended, because the law seems to enshrine an actual right not to be offended, at least when it comes to religion.

In its charge sheet, the SIT concluded that the assassins’ motivation for killing Gauri was very specific: a single speech she gave, in Kannada, at a Communal Harmony Forum event in Mangalore, on August 2, 2012. “What is this Hindu religion?” she said in the speech. “Who is the founder of this religion? We know the founder of the Christian religion and its holy book, we know the Muslim religion and also its holy book, likewise about the Sikh religion, the Buddhist religion, Jain religion, but who is the founder of the Hindu religion?…This is a religion without a father and mother and it does not have a holy book. It never existed, and it was named only after the British, can it be called a religion?”

A video clip of this speech circulated widely on YouTube and WhatsApp with the caption “Why I hate secularism in India.” And the SIT found that as each new member of the assassination team was inducted into the conspiracy, the ringleaders would show them this particular clip, often repeatedly, as the primary motivator of their will to kill. They told their recruits that in making these remarks, Gauri had “caused great damage” to Hinduism, and that further harm will befall Hinduism “if she is permitted to continue to speak this way.”

In December 2016, Gauri herself posted a link to the video, writing, “I am facing a case because of this speech. I stand by every word I said.” Police had booked her for what she said in the speech, not under Section 295A, but under Section 153, incitement to riot (although there had been no riot). A court hearing in the case was scheduled for September 15, 2017, ten days after her death. Her friend Vivek Shanbhag told me he saw this clip circulate much more widely on social media after her murder—“certainly to convey that this is justified.” These re-postings were often captioned with lines like of course killing is wrong, but look at what she said.

It wasn’t important to the killers even how influential their targets were. They themselves had mostly never even heard of Gauri until they were shown this video. The important thing was whether the target had done or said something—even a single quotation, and ideally captured on video—that could crystallize outrage against the target. It turned out that it wasn’t about suppressing unfavorable journalism, and it wasn’t about the Lingayat debate. (The killers didn’t care about vote-bank politics.) It was because the killers simply believed they had a duty to kill those who had, in their view, intolerably insulted Hinduism, regardless of their stature and influence. As the Sanatan Sanstha book Kshatradharma Sadhana put it, the seekers had to slay the evildoers.

Beyond that imperative, it seemed to me that the killers weren’t strategic at all in their choice of target, although Gauri’s friend Shivasundar disagreed with me. “I think they have multiple strategies,” he said. “One of the strategies is to kill the local problematic people. They may not be high profile, but they are an immediate impediment. Writing in local languages, immediately they’re a threat. They did not think that Gauri would have so much national and international attention, because they didn’t do much homework on Gauri, I don’t think. So this actually blew up beyond their imagination. It boomeranged. But other people in the target are local, state- level kind of leaders. I think that is the new strategy, assassinating these kinds of people.”

There is no concept of blasphemy in Hindu scripture. It’s an idea that comes from the Abrahamic tradition. Christianity and Judaism seem to have retreated from it, by and large. But Hindutva has adopted it; in recent years Sanatan Sanstha has been agitating for an Indian anti-blasphemy law. Hindutva hard-liners, in defense of their touchiness, often point out how touchy many Muslims are over any negative comments on Islam or Muhammad, which is of course true. But it’s a strange thing to aspire to the touchiness of the most insecure Muslims. A great deal of Hindutva seems to be geared toward imitating the most reactionary qualities of the religion (Islam) and the country (Pakistan) that they claim to hate the most.

It’s important to note that the current level of Hindutva sensitivity is a recent development. Gandhi was assassinated not because of particular things he said but because the Hindu right wing thought that he’d used his enormous influence over the future of South Asia to “appease” its Muslim population en masse and thereby, supposedly, give away half the country (in the form of Pakistan). The author of the Indian Constitution, B. R. Ambedkar, converted to Buddhism in 1956 along with hundreds of thousands of his fellow Dalits. “I am ecstatic! I have left hell—this is how I feel,” he said the next day. “Because of the Hindu religion, no one can progress. That religion is only a destructive religion.” Those words haven’t stopped the BJP and RSS from attempting to co-opt his legacy in the hopes of attracting a Dalit following. K. S. Bhagawan, the next person the assassins planned to kill, pointed out to me that he’d been saying inflammatory things about Hinduism for decades; only recently did anyone threaten to murder him over it.

Still, several of Gauri’s friends and colleagues told me that while obviously she deserved no harm for anything she said, they didn’t honestly like that she could be so pejorative about Hinduism instead of reserving her criticism for Hindutva. “I really think that the way Gauri, or some of us, or many such people addressed these issues was not correct,” said H. V. Vasu— a progressive activist whose secular credentials are impeccable. “You may be an atheist, but there are people who are religious. And especially when irrationality is growing, and more and more people are going to the other side—even common people who are actually voting for an ideology that oppresses them. Then what approach should you take? You should stick to your ground in fighting for democratic rights, secularism, all that is true. But people do need God. Even when Marx said that religion is opium, there were other sentences attached to it—he said that religion is the heart of the heartless world and the soul of the soulless world. There’s so much suffering and insecurity in this world. You must acknowledge that people have spiritual needs.”

On New Year’s Day 2012, in the northern Karnataka town of Sindagi, six young men were arrested for hoisting the national flag of Pakistan on the flagpole in front of a local government office. The men were members of the fringe Hindutva group Sri Ram Sena; their intention was to whip up tensions with the local Muslim population. The man who actually hoisted the Pakistan flag was a twenty-year-old college student named Parashuram Waghmare. Five years later, he would shoot and kill Gauri Lankesh. The ringleaders of the group who conspired to kill her recruited him precisely because of the initiative he’d shown in the flag-hoisting incident.

Waghmare had never heard of Gauri until those conspirators told him they wanted him to kill her and showed him the video of her speech. But Gauri, oddly enough, had heard of Waghmare. His flag-hoisting escapade was notorious in Karnataka. In the January 28, 2012, issue of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, she even wrote about it for her lead editorial. “It has been proven now that patriotism, nationalism, and religiousness are simply a few table topics” to Hindutva activists, she wrote. “Their true agenda has been to instigate communal hate between different religions of India through acts of terrorism.” She called Waghmare and his accomplices “Hindu hooligans.” Her next issue’s cover story was an investigation into the flag-hoisting incident by one of her reporters.

But another group was already rising, one that Gauri knew nothing about yet. I derived all of the information in the following account of that group from the 255 pages of statements of the accused included in the SIT’s charge sheet, as well as newspaper articles by Johnson T. A. of The Indian Express and K. V. Aditya Bharadwaj of The Hindu, who are universally considered the two most accurate and reliable reporters on the assassination of Gauri Lankesh. At the time I’m writing this, the trial against these suspects is ongoing, and every sentence that follows should be presumed to include the word “allegedly.”

The founder of the assassination organisation that murdered Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M. M. Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh was Dr. Virendra Tawade, an ENT surgeon who had been a longtime member of Sanatan Sanstha. Tawade had led Sanatan Sanstha’s protest campaign against Dabholkar’s anti-superstition organization, MANS—one medical doctor versus another. Tawade founded the assassination group at the urging of Shashikant Rane, alias Kaka, the top editor of Sanatan Sanstha’s newspaper, Sanatan Prabhat. In 2010 or 2011, Rane convened a meeting at the Sanatan Sanstha ashram in Goa with Tawade and two other Sanatan Sanstha members: Amol Kale and Amit Degwekar. Amol Kale was a leader of the Sanatan Sanstha’s offshoot Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and served as a salesman of the organization’s publications. Amit Degwekar lived at the Goa ashram and worked as a promoter and proofreader of Sanatan Prabhat. His roommate at the ashram had died in 2009 when he accidentally detonated his explosives while attempting to bomb the festival in the nearby town of Margao.

Dr. Tawade was founding the new group, Rane told Kale and Degwekar at the meeting, because “Hindu dharma is in trouble.” The law would clearly not protect their interests, so they needed to take the law into their own hands. Hindu youth must be gathered, a sense of revolution must be instilled in them, and they must carry out the religious work of destroying evildoers. Dr. Tawade was not giving the organization a name, Rane explained, because a name would only make it easier for the police to identify and thwart them. Rane would remain in his role at Sanatan Sanstha and help fund the new nameless group (until he died in 2018, inconveniently for the SIT). The other three men at the founding meeting—along with two other early members of the group, Sujith Kumar and Vikas Patil—would henceforth disassociate themselves from Sanatan Sanstha. Degwekar would serve as liaison between Sanatan Sanstha and the new, nameless group, as well as its treasurer.

Over the next few years, as they enlisted dozens of recruits, the Nameless Group developed a strict set of protocols. To aid focus and avoid mistakes, chant mantras every day. When mistakes occur, write them down. When meeting other members of the Nameless Group, don’t request or share anything personal, including line of work, and especially don’t ask or offer names or personal phone numbers; only call other members using specially assigned burner phones. Everyone would be assigned a code name, numbers would be written in a cipher, and all references to criminal activities would be conducted in code words.

It’s important to note that the co-conspirators barely knew one another. They often didn’t have fluent languages in common because they came from several different states. They met at bus stands, wearing caps to recognize one another, and at training camps in remote areas, where they received practical education in weapons (guns, petrol bombs, IEDs) and subterfuge (how to mislead the police; how to endure police torture). It’s only after they were arrested that most of them spent much time with one another.

One member was a used-car salesman. One was a goldsmith. One ran a fragrance shop; another ran a computer-assisted design company. One was a civil contractor and former elementary school teacher. One worked as an astrologer and Ayurveda specialist. One sold incense sticks; another was a vegetable vendor. The day job of another, incredibly, was personal assistant to a Congress Party legislator. One was a motorcycle mechanic, who, more to the point, was also a skilled motorcycle thief. The mechanic said that when Dr. Tawade met the new recruits, “he filled our heads with all his thoughts. He kept emphasizing the point that if we did anything for dharma, our family would be safe in all the seven lives to come.”

Sharad Kalaskar, who was selected to shoot Narendra Dabholkar, worked as a farmer. After Kalaskar committed the deed, on August 20, 2013, Dr. Tawade told him that he would be uplifted in all seven births, that he would go to God as Arjuna (one of the warrior heroes of the Mahabharata), and that even though he had committed a big “event”—their code word for “attack”—the police would not catch him because God’s grace was upon him.

Around that time, several members held a meeting to brainstorm whom they might kill next. One new recruit—Mohan Nayak, who served as a leader of the Karnataka branch of the Sanatan Sanstha offshoot HJS—made a list that included a supposed Naxalite, a Muslim politician, and Agni Sreedhar. A more senior member explained to him that he should not include Muslims, Christians, or politicians on the list; their priority, he explained, should be Hindus by birth who had become traitors to Hinduism and who were therefore threats to their own faith. Such people were bigger threats to the faith than Muslims. Nayak got the idea and suggested a different name: Gauri Lankesh.

But that would wait. On February 16, 2015, the Nameless Group killed Govind Pansare. On August 30, 2015, they killed M. M. Kalburgi; for this killing, the shooter was Ganesh Miskin, alias Mithun, who would go on to drive the motorcycle for the Gauri Lankesh assassination.

On June 10, 2016, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Dr. Tawade for Dabholkar’s murder—three years after Dabholkar’s murder and two years after the CBI had taken over the investigation from the Maharashtra police. After the arrest, Rane, the editor of Sanatan Sanstha’s newspaper, summoned Tawade’s deputy, Amol Kale, to the Goa ashram and made him the new head of the Nameless Group. “You take up the lead of the dharma work and continue,” he said. “We’ll provide you with all the assistance from time to time.”

In June 2016, the group’s main recruiter, who goes by the alias Praveen, showed the other senior members the video clip from the speech Gauri had delivered in Mangalore in 2012, in which she ridiculed Hinduism for not having a “mother or father.” In the last week of August they called a meeting with several junior members of the group, at which they discussed the Sanatan Sanstha book Kshatradharma Sadhana and each drew up lists of evildoers. They soon coalesced around Gauri as their next target. Kale’s diary revealed the group’s code name for their plot to kill Gauri: Operation Amma (“amma” meaning “mother”).

Kale introduced a different operational style to the Nameless Group. Whereas Tawade’s plots were straightforward—case the victim’s house, then show up and shoot him at an opportune time—Kale’s plot against Gauri was much more elaborate and compartmentalised, with separate teams running each facet of the operation. They were more careful than ever, but also more confident.

In October 2016, the Nameless Group enlisted Parashuram Waghmare. They had been particularly impressed by Waghmare’s arrest for hoisting the Pakistan flag. They told him there was someone who needed to be murdered and urged him to meditate and pray. That same month, the group’s mechanic stole the Hero Honda Passion Pro motorcycle that the hit team would use for Gauri’s murder and gave it to Amol Kale.

Meanwhile, Kale gave Gauri’s office address to two of the younger recruits—Ganesh Miskin and Amit Baddi—and assigned them to do reconnaissance. In late March they traveled to Bangalore, stayed at the house of a friend (lying to him that they were in town for work), borrowed the friend’s motorcycle, and tailed Gauri for a couple days. In April they met Kale again, gave him her home address, and reported that she lived alone. The best time to kill her, they said, would be when she gets out of her car to open her house’s gate. Throughout the summer of 2017, these three men were crawling all over her neighborhood for weeks, continuing to study her movements, surveying all lights and CCTV cameras near her house, practicing multiple variations on routes, absorbed invisibly into the traffic of Bangalore. In July they brought Waghmare on a reconnaissance visit to Bangalore, but blindfolded him so that he’d know as little as necessary.

Throughout that summer the group also did firearms practice at a remote farm shed owned by one member, using a polystyrene mannequin as their target. They mostly used air pistols because real bullets were in short supply. Between shooting and karate they did meditation and yoga.

In June 2017, they recruited the final member of the team: K. T. Naveen Kumar, the one who slipped up first and gave them all away. That month, at the annual Sanatan Sanstha convention in Goa, he gave the impromptu speech, about the need to use weapons to protect Hindu dharma, that had so impressed his fellow convention goers. The HJS spokesperson Mohan Gowda then introduced him to Praveen, the Nameless Group’s recruiter. When they first met, Naveen Kumar gave Praveen two bullets, but came up empty when the group asked him again and again for more. Naveen Kumar talked big, but those two bullets were his only apparent contribution to the plot.

In the second week of August 2017, members of the Nameless Group stayed in the Bangalore suburbs for several days. There Kale gave them their assignments. Waghmare was assigned to shooting. Miskin was to drive the motorcycle on “event” day and to be the backup shooter—and also to shoot anyone who tried to interfere with the assassination. Baddi was to wait in a van en route to Gauri’s house to help the hit team with their clothes and guns, to retrieve the guns and clothes from them immediately after the “event,” and then to bring the guns and the motorcycle to the city of Belgaum. Kalaskar, who shot Dabholkar, was to continue training Waghmare and Miskin in shooting and to collect the guns from Baddi in Belgaum. A member named Bharat Kurne, code-named Uncle because he was a family man, was assigned to cook for the hit team, to ensure they got out of town on a bus on the night of the “event,” to bribe police if necessary, and to help keep the hit team’s minds “stable” by leading them in meditation and prayer.

After shooting practice, Waghmare selected the gun that he was most comfortable with, which happened to be the same gun that shot Pansare and Kalburgi. Miskin told Waghmare that he shot Kalburgi in the forehead and Waghmare should shoot Gauri in the forehead, too. Baddi advised Waghmare to chant God’s name while shooting, as is recommended in the Sanatan Sanstha book Kshatradharma Sadhana.

On September 2, 2017, Kale and another member traveled to Bangalore along with the hit team’s clothes, two guns, and twenty-five bullets. For the week of the murder, the Nameless Group had set up two hideouts in the southern suburbs of Bangalore. The core hit team—Waghmare, Miskin, Baddi, and Kurne—stayed together. When Waghmare was brought to that hideout, on September 3, the others again blindfolded him so that he wouldn’t know where it was.

September 4, 2017, was the day they chose to kill Gauri. The hit team woke up early to pray for an hour or two. Kurne cooked them lunch. As the time for the “event” approached, he instructed the hit team to use the toilet, to eat little food, and to carry cash. At around 6:30, Miskin gave Waghmare a pistol and kept one for himself. On the way to Gauri’s house, they stopped to put on their second layer of clothes and cover their faces with handkerchiefs and put a fake license plate on their motorcycle and load their guns. They arrived at the park near Gauri’s house at around 7:45. They waited there until 8:00, and then Waghmare walked over to Gauri’s house and found that she was already at home.

On September 5, 2017, they tried again, following the same plan and arriving at the park near Gauri’s house at around 7:50. When Gauri’s car appeared, taking a right turn by the park, Miskin pointed her out to Waghmare. They followed her on the motorcycle. When she got out of her car to open her gate, Waghmare stepped down from the motorcycle, aimed his gun at her head, and fired, striking her twice in the abdomen. She screamed and ran. He fired two more bullets, one of which struck the wall of her house, the other hitting her below the right shoulder. Meanwhile, Miskin turned the motorcycle around. He and Waghmare fled, stopping to reverse their disguises on the way back to the hideout. The gun was out of Waghmare’s possession fifteen minutes after the murder; he passed it to Baddi, who passed it to Kale, who wrapped it up and put it in a red suitcase, which went into a storage space rented for that purpose. At the hideout, Kurne was waiting for the killers with their luggage to get them to the bus out of town.

Half of the accused conspirators were outside Bangalore on the day of the assassination and only learned of its success the next day. On September 7, at a construction site in Belgaum, Kale met the core assassination team— Waghmare, Miskin, Baddi, and Kurne. He fed them chocolates and gave Waghmare 10,000 rupees, or around $150. Waghmare soon spent it all, 4,000 rupees of it on hospital treatment for nasal problems.

By October 2017, the Nameless Group had turned to the next item on their list: the assassination of Professor Bhagawan. In the first week of November 2017, most of the conspirators met at Kurne’s farm for further training and discussion of plans. As usual, their training session alternated between weapons training and dharma talks, prayer, and meditation. Despite the successful assassination in September, Kale appears to have been increasingly frustrated with his co-conspirators. He reprimanded one for not being in Bangalore to help during the “event.” He was angry at two others because he assigned them to do reconnaissance for three days on a social activist in Pune, but they came back with nothing.

Meanwhile, Praveen, the group’s recruiter, had been calling K. T. Naveen Kumar about the plot to kill Bhagawan, again asking him if he could procure more guns and bullets. Naveen Kumar told him he’d do literally anything to protect dharma and bragged, implausibly, that he could get guns from the late bandit Veerappan’s gang with a week’s notice. It was these phone calls that the SIT intercepted, giving them their big break and beginning their series of arrests.

In December 2017, led by Kale, ten members of the Nameless Group met in Pune to organize a bomb attack on the Sunburn Festival, an electronic dance music event, because they considered it contrary to their idea of Hindu culture, but they abandoned the plan after two members accidentally got caught on CCTV cameras while doing advance reconnaissance. The following month, Kale organized an attack on movie theaters showing the historical epic Padmaavat, because it is, as Kalaskar put it in his statement, “a misrepresentation of the history of Hindu kings” and might encourage Muslim men to pursue Hindu women. “We intended to cause loss of property and create an atmosphere of fear,” he said. In this they were successful: the group exploded bombs at two movie theaters. No one was hurt, but panic broke out and screenings of the film were canceled.

Around this time, Naveen Kumar asked the senior members of the group to meet him in Davanagere because, he said, the “things” had arrived for killing Bhagawan. When they arrived, Naveen Kumar gave them the runaround for a while before admitting he still had no guns—there was apparently “no signal” from “his side” because “they did not trust us enough.” Kale was furious. After this, Naveen Kumar never again picked up their calls.

On February 19, 2018, Naveen Kumar was arrested. The senior members of the group had an urgent meeting in Madgaon. They decided to collect their weapons stashes and move them to a safer place, to shave any facial hair, to wear glasses and caps, and to hide out for a while in a different house. But Kale assured the other conspirators that the arrest of Naveen Kumar wouldn’t affect them; they should meditate and pray and prepare for more dharma work. While in hiding, Kalaskar accidentally shot himself in the hand while cleaning a gun.

On May 20, 2018, Praveen, the group’s recruiter, was arrested; police found twenty-two phones, and many more loose SIM cards, in his kitchen, along with his diary and a copy of the book Kshatradharma Sadhana. The next day, police arrested three others, including Kale, while they waited for Praveen at a bus stand; they didn’t yet know of his arrest. In Kale’s possession police found twenty-one phones, plus three diaries at his home. In the possession of Degwekar, the group’s treasurer, they found several envelopes of cash, totaling over 150,000 rupees, that had been withdrawn from a Sanatan Sanstha bank account, along with the passbook for that account. Degwekar claimed that the money was subscription payments from readers of Sanatan Sanstha periodicals. Police found that the various diaries referred to over two dozen collaborators with the Nameless Group in Karnataka and dozens more in Maharashtra—over sixty arms-trained and

radicalised recruits total (most of whom had not yet participated in any hit jobs). Intelligence agencies immediately put as many of them as they could under surveillance if they didn’t yet have the evidence to arrest them. These recruits mostly came from a tri-state area: southwestern Maharashtra, Goa, and northern Karnataka. The annual Sanatan Sanstha convention in Goa, it seemed, was their central recruitment hub, where they sought out young men with violent tendencies and a history of communal incitement.

After learning of Kale’s arrest, the members at large destroyed their burner phones. Mohan Nayak destroyed the bomb gelatin he was storing for future attacks. Kalaskar, the member who’d shot Dabholkar and who’d helped train Gauri’s killers, burned his phone and his three diaries, which included his notes on how to make guns and bombs. On June 11, Waghmare was arrested.

Kalaskar still had the guns. After Waghmare’s arrest, Kalaskar met with the Sanatan Sanstha lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar. To cover their tracks, they had an elaborate method of meeting: Punalekar’s assistant placed an ad in Sanatan Prabhat seeking a security guard, and Kalaskar answered the ad, whereupon the assistant took him to meet Punalekar at his office. Punalekar asked Kalaskar whether Gauri’s murder could be tied to Kale or Tawade, and he asked about the location of the guns. Two days later they met again, and Punalekar told him to destroy the guns used for killing Gauri along with their remaining stash of guns and bombs. “He also asked me how long it would take to make new guns,” Kalaskar said in his statement, “and he said he would pay the cost for making guns.” Punalekar asked Kalaskar extensively about the Dabholkar murder and “various cases,” and told him not to worry.

I will note here that the account of Kalaskar’s conversations with Punalekar in the above paragraph comes directly from a statement that Kalaskar dictated and signed before a magistrate, which means that it is admissible as evidence in court. Later, in 2019, the Central Bureau of Investigation would arrest Punalekar in connection with Dabholkar’s murder. The SIT investigating Gauri’s murder said they considered Punalekar a “person of interest” in that case for advising Kalaskar to destroy the guns, but they did not arrest him.

On July 18, 2018, Mohan Nayak was arrested. On July 23, Kalaskar disassembled the guns in his possession, including those used in Gauri’s murder, then, with the help of Punalekar’s assistant, threw the guns’ slides and barrels into Vasai Creek, near Mumbai, which empties into the Arabian Sea. He kept the remaining gun parts for making new guns, calculating, apparently accurately, that only the slides and barrels were ballistically identifiable. Over the next three weeks, the SIT arrested seven more members of the Nameless Group, including Kalaskar, Kurne, Miskin, and Baddi.

On August 19, 2018, the Maharashtra Anti-terrorism Squad raided the house of the assistant of the Sanatan Sanstha lawyer Punalekar and found an enormous cache of explosives, plus sixteen complete pistols and many partially made pistols and pistol parts. The ATS concluded that most of these pistols were made or obtained after the arrest of Naveen Kumar six months before, which suggests an alarmingly rapid rearmament of the Nameless Group, even while their members were being arrested. In the past the group had lain low for as long as two years between hits, to let things cool down. Kale apparently wanted to accelerate the group’s work, to assign multiple simultaneous assassination plots and bombings to several teams. The bust also implied that the group had grown large enough that it was possible that enough members remained free to regroup and kill again.

On August 20 and September 8, two more members were arrested. Now only two of the eighteen men charge sheeted for Gauri’s murder remained at large, both of them senior members of the Nameless Group. “Sanatan Sanstha has no connection with these killings. Due to propaganda by the Communist Party, the misunderstanding about us has been created,” said a Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson on September 6, 2018, the day after the first anniversary of Gauri’s death. “Violence was never, is never and will never find any place in the mission of Sanatan Sanstha, which believes in working in a constitutional manner.”

(The first excerpt was published some days ago and may be read here. The second excerpt may be read here.

The third excerpt was published too and may be read here. This is the fourth and concluding excerpt that we will be pulishing.)

Note from the Editors: We would like to express our heartfelt solidarity with the family of Gauri Lankesh, Indira Lankesh, Kavitha and Esha Laneksh, who have with pathos and determination built on the gaping vacuum created by Gauri Lankesh’s assassination. Gauri was also a close and dear activist friend of Sabrangindia’s co-editor, Teesta Setalvad.

Related:

Rationalist Murders: Slamming CBI’s shoddy probe & failure to nab masterminds, Pune court slams attempt to “finish off Dabholkar’s ideology”

10 years since Narendra Dabholkar’s murder, protest in Mumbai, SC asks CBI to look into ‘larger conspiracy’

Firing at the Heart of Truth: Remembering MM Kalburgi

Teesta Setalvad On Assault On Reason

Death of a Rationalist: Govind Pansare

Contrasting two lists: one with “facts” on right-wing deaths, the second, targeting other writers after Gauri Lankesh

Storms battered her from outside, but she stood, an unwavering flame: Gauri Lankesh

Honour for killers of Gauri Lankesh and MM Kalburgi in Karnataka, public felicitation and terms like “Hindu tigers” for accused Amit Baddi and Ganesh…

Protest in Karnataka as activists condemns felicitation of Gauri Lankesh murder accused by right-wing groups

Murderers or Martyrs? The dangerous glorification of murdered Gauri Lankesh’s accused by Hindutva groups

Gauri Lankesh assassination: 6 years down, no closure for family and friends, justice elusive

The post How the noose tightened: understanding modus operandi of killers who took the life of journalist-activist, Gauri Lankesh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This analysis examines both facets of this pivotal judgment.

A case of investigative failure

The case was brought up by Sukdeb Saha after his 17-year-old daughter, Ms. X, died after a fall from her hostel building in Vishakhapatnam, where she was enrolled in a coaching institute. The appellant’s plea to the Supreme Court was precipitated by a series of glaring deficiencies and contradictions in the local police investigation, which led him to lose faith in the state machinery and seek a transfer of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Court documented the investigative lapses, which collectively painted a picture of an inquiry that was, at best, ineffective and, at worst, designed to obscure the truth. Key failures identified by the Court included:

1. The unsubstantiated suicide theory: The police hastily concluded the death was a suicide without a suicide note, psychological history, or corroborating witness statements, a conclusion the Court deemed a “post-facto justification.”
2. Contradictory CCTV evidence: Footage showed a discrepancy in the clothing of the girl seen going to the terrace and the victim found on the ground, a contradiction the police made no effort to reconcile.
3. Misrepresentation of medical state: The police and hospital claimed the victim was unconscious upon admission, but an AIIMS medical board report and eyewitness accounts confirmed she was conscious and responsive, indicating a missed opportunity to record her statement.
4. Conflict of interest: A single medical officer served as the autopsy surgeon, the chemical analyst, and a member of the internal inquiry committee, an “egregious conflict of interest” that compromised the investigation’s integrity.
5. Destruction of forensic evidence: The victim’s viscera were prematurely destroyed by the forensic lab before a court-mandated DNA comparison could be completed, an act that “irrevocably compromised the proceedings.”
6. Withholding key reports: The authorities failed to produce the Chemical Analysis Report and the final opinion on the cause of death, documents of “foundational evidentiary value.”

Based on this litany of failures, the Court concluded that the case met the “compelling necessity” standard required for transferring an investigation. It held that a CBI probe was essential to ensure impartiality, restore public confidence, and deliver justice to the bereaved family.

1.      The Sukdeb Saha Guidelines for Student Well-being

The judgment’s second, and more far-reaching, part transitions from the specific case to the systemic issue of student mental health. The Court framed the rising number of student suicides—over 13,000 in 2022 according to NCRB data—as a “deepening crisis” and a “systemic failure” of an education system that prioritizes relentless competition over holistic well-being.

Drawing a parallel to its intervention in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan[(1997) 6 SCC 241], where it filled a legislative vacuum on workplace sexual harassment, the Court invoked its powers under Article 141 of the Constitution to issue binding interim guidelines. It grounded these guidelines in the constitutional “Right to Mental Health” as an integral part of the Right to Life under Article 21, as well as India’s international law obligations.

The following 15 guidelines were issued, establishing a preventive and supportive framework applicable to all educational institutions across India until a formal legislative framework is enacted.

The Guidelines

The following are the exhaustive guidelines as laid down by the Supreme Court in the judgment:

1. All educational institutions shall adopt and implement a uniform mental health policy, drawing cues from the UMMEED [Understand, Motivate, Manage, Empathise, Empower, Develop] Draft Guidelines, the MANODARPAN initiative, and the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. This policy shall be reviewed and updated annually and made publicly accessible on institutional websites and notice boards of the institutes.
2. All educational institutions with 100 or more enrolled students shall appoint/engage at least one qualified counsellor, psychologist, or social worker with demonstrable training in child and adolescent mental health. Institutions with fewer students shall establish formal referral linkages with external mental health professionals.

III. All educational institutions shall ensure optimal student-to-counsellor ratios. Dedicated mentors or counsellors shall be assigned to smaller batches of students, especially during examination periods and academic transitions, to provide consistent, informal, and confidential support.

1. All educational institutions, more particularly the coaching institutes/centres, shall, as far as possible, refrain from engaging in batch segregation based on academic performance, public shaming, or assignment of academic targets disproportionate to students’ capacities.
2. All educational institutions shall establish written protocols for immediate referral to mental health services, local hospitals, and suicide prevention helplines. Suicide helpline numbers, including Tele-MANAS and other national services, shall be prominently displayed in hostels, classrooms, common areas, and on websites in large and legible print.
3. All teaching and non-teaching staff shall undergo mandatory training at least twice a year, conducted by certified mental health professionals, on psychological first-aid, identification of warning signs, response to self-harm, and referral mechanisms.

VII. All educational institutions shall ensure that all teaching, non-teaching, and administrative staff are adequately trained to engage with students from vulnerable and marginalised backgrounds in a sensitive, inclusive, and non-discriminatory manner. This shall include, but not be limited to, students belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), LGBTQ+ communities, students with disabilities, those in out-of-home care, and students affected by bereavement, trauma, or prior suicide attempts, or intersecting form of marginalisation.

VIII. All educational institutions shall establish robust, confidential, and accessible mechanisms for the reporting, redressal, and prevention of incidents involving sexual assault, harassment, ragging, and bullying on the basis of caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or ethnicity. Every such institution shall constitute an internal committee or designated authority empowered to take immediate action on complaints and provide psycho-social support to victims. Institutions shall also maintain zero tolerance for retaliatory actions against complainants or whistle-blowers. In all such cases, immediate referral to trained mental health professionals must be ensured, and the student’s safety, physical and psychological, shall be prioritised. Failure to take timely or adequate action in such cases, especially where such neglect contributes to a student’s self-harm or suicide, shall be treated as institutional culpability, making the administration liable to regulatory and legal consequences.

1. All educational Institutions shall regularly organise sensitisation programmes (physical and/or online) for parents and guardians on student mental health. It shall be the duty of the institution to sensitise the parents and guardians to avoid placing undue academic pressure, to recognise signs of psychological distress, and to respond empathetically and supportively. Further, mental health literacy, emotional regulation, life skills education, and awareness of institutional support services shall be integrated into student orientation programmes and co-curricular activities.
2. All educational institutions shall maintain anonymised records and prepare an annual report indicating the number of wellness interventions, student referrals, training sessions, and mental health-related activities. This report shall be submitted to the relevant regulatory authority, which may be the State Education Department, University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), or as otherwise indicated.
3. All educational institutions shall prioritise extracurricular activities, including sports, arts, and personality development initiatives. Examination patterns shall be periodically reviewed to reduce academic burden and to cultivate a broader sense of identity among students beyond test scores and ranks.

XII. All educational institutions, including coaching centres and training institutes, shall provide regular, structured career counselling services for students and their parents or guardians. These sessions shall be conducted by qualified counsellors and shall aim to reduce unrealistic academic pressure, promote awareness of diverse academic and professional pathways, and assist students in making informed and interest-based career decisions. Institutions shall ensure that such counselling is inclusive, sensitive to socio-economic and psychological contexts, and does not reinforce narrow definitions of merit or success.

XIII. All residential-based educational institutions, including hostel owners, wardens and caretakers, shall take proactive steps to ensure that campuses remain free from harassment, bullying, drugs, and other harmful substances, thereby ensuring a safe and healthy living and learning environment for all students.

XIV. All residential-based institutions shall install tamper-proof ceiling fans or equivalent safety devices, and shall restrict access to rooftops, balconies, and other high-risk areas, in order to deter impulsive acts of self-harm.

1. All coaching hubs, including but not limited to Jaipur, Kota, Sikar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, and other cities where students migrate in large numbers for competitive examination preparation, shall implement heightened mental health protections and preventive measures. These regions, having witnessed disproportionately high incidents of student suicides, require special attention. The concerned authorities, namely, the Department of Education, District Administration, and management of educational institutions, shall ensure the provision of regular career counselling for students and parents, regulation of academic pressure through structured academic planning, availability of continuous psychological support, and the establishment of institutional mechanisms for monitoring and accountability to safeguard student mental well-being.

2.      Enforcement and accountability

To ensure these guidelines are not merely advisory, the Court established a robust, time-bound enforcement and accountability mechanism:

1. State-level action: All States and Union Territories were directed to notify rules for the registration and regulation of private coaching centers within two months, incorporating the mental health safeguards.
2. District-level oversight: A District-Level Monitoring Committee, chaired by the District Magistrate/Collector, should be constituted in every district to oversee implementation, conduct inspections, and handle complaints.
3. Central accountability & judicial supervision: The Union of India was directed to file a compliance affidavit within 90 days. The Supreme Court has retained supervisory jurisdiction, listing the matter for a follow-up hearing on October 27, 2025, to review compliance.

In conclusion, the Sukdeb Saha judgment is a powerful judicial intervention that addresses both an individual plea for justice and a national social crisis. It sets a new precedent for holding institutions accountable for the mental well-being of students and provides a comprehensive, actionable framework to foster safer and more supportive educational environments across India. However, whether this will materialise into effective implementation, that too in the face of powerful coaching and education business lobby across India is yet to be seen.

 (The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

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The post How the Supreme Court built a binding legal framework to protect student mental heath appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This excerpt, the third in a series of four that Sabrangindia is publishing, looks at the investigation into Gauri Lankesh’s murder and is both instructive and seriously concerning. The editors remain thankful to the author and to Westland Books for permission to publish this excerpt.

CHAPTER 18

The Kingdom of Absolute Truth

On November 23, 2018, the Special Investigation Team submitted a charge sheet accusing eighteen men of conspiring together to murder Gauri Lankesh. By then they’d arrested sixteen of those men. The two remaining men were still at large. The charge sheet was a whopping 9,235 pages in length, a record of all the evidence the SIT had assembled against the men to make the argument that they should be charged with murder: forensic reports, handwriting samples, witness statements, statements from most of the accused, narrative summaries, and much, much more, most of it in Kannada.

Johnson at The Indian Express gave me a scan of the thing when I got back to Bangalore in the summer of 2019, but I needed time to get the relevant parts translated into English. I was especially impatient to read the statements of the accused, in Kannada and Hindi, which alone totaled 255 pages.

There was one long English-language document included in the charge sheet: an entire book, titled Kshatradharma Sadhana, multiple copies of which were found in the suspects’ possession. Its author is Jayant Athavale, the founder and guru of Sanatan Sanstha. Eighty-six pages long, the book is volume 1E in Athavale’s Science of Spirituality series; its subtitle is Spiritual Practice of Protecting Seekers and Destroying Evildoers.

“Violence towards evildoers is non-violence itself,” he assures the reader. “It is a sin not to slay an evildoer…. The sin of killing the undeserving is the same as not slaying one who deserves it.” And for these killings, the law of karma “does not apply”: “Destroy evildoers if you have been advised by saints or Gurus to do so. Then these acts are not registered in your name…. But this is also not registered in the name of the saint or Guru because They both are the manifest forms of God.” The spiritually motivated assassin is sure to succeed. “It does not matter if one is not used to shooting. When he shoots along with chanting the Lord’s name the bullet certainly strikes the target due to the inherent power in the Lord’s name.”

The book is nothing less than a manual for murder in the cause of spirituality. It makes a point of repeatedly clarifying that this is not a metaphor: it is an extended argument for the “physical destruction” of any people whom “seekers” determine to be “evildoers,” complete with many quotations from multiple scriptures, all of them framed in a way that seems to exhort the reader to kill. The book enables murder as an act of goodness.

“Society has been invaded by germs in the form of evildoers. If these germs are not destroyed then the entire society shall be destroyed,” Athavale writes. “In order to protect yourselves it is now imperative to destroy evildoers in society otherwise they will destroy you.”

In typical Sanatan Sanstha style, everything is broken down mock- empirically, complete with multiple tables. “In general, society comprises of 5% evildoers and 10% seekers. The rest of the 85% are passive, self- centered good-for-nothings from the social point of view as they are concerned only about their families.” The “crusade against evil,” Athavale calculates, is 65 percent a spiritual battle, 30 percent a psychological battle, and 5 percent a physical battle.

When a seeker is ready to destroy evildoers, the first thing to do is “start making lists of evildoers.” He suggests consulting the pages of Sanatan Sanstha’s newspaper, Sanatan Prabhat, for inspiration in compiling a hit list, because it publishes “news about evildoings.” When the time comes to kill, the seeker should show no mercy. “Evildoers do not deserve to be pardoned. One should certainly not be moved by the emotional talk of an enemy and should never let him go scot free or pardon him.”

“This subject is quite different from others,” Athavale admits in the book’s conclusion. “Consequently you will probably be stunned. However you should contemplate on the topic then you will realise how essential it is for you with regard to spiritual progress.”

Before anything else, I caught up with Kavitha. We met in her office on the top floor of her father’s office building, a room lined with posters of her own and her father’s films, along with favorites by other directors: Kiarostami’s Close-Up, Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia, Kurosawa’s Ikiru, along with Roman Holiday (Lankesh was an Audrey Hepburn fan). She looked stylish in a dark blue kurta and tortoise-shell glasses, and as usual she cried silently and continuously whenever we spoke of Gauri, wiping her tears away with a pink handkerchief.

Since I’d last seen her, she’d released a new film called Summer Holidays—a light, charming adventure about a group of kids who stumble on a mystery and learn a lesson about conservation. It was a family affair: in her film debut, Kavitha’s daughter, Esha, played the lead, alongside one of Indrajit’s sons. Even one of the family dogs had a role. And Gauri appeared in a cameo, which Kavitha filmed two months before her death—as a crusading journalist, naturally. She was still deciding what to make next. “I got a very bad offer for a film that I didn’t like, so I refused to make it,” she said. “Some coming-of-age comedy, four boys trying to lose their virginity. You know how it is. I’m not in that mental state of mind. I mean, if I was twenty, maybe I would have thought of it. I’ve got another idea with two women protagonists. And one more. I seriously want to work on Gauri’s film, actually. A film on Gauri.”

The next day we met at her home in southern Bangalore. Kavitha mentioned that her neighborhood, because it’s well-off, is a BJP stronghold, and she constantly hears her neighbors sing the praises of Modi. Her neighbor across the street stopped talking to her after Gauri was murdered. Esha appeared to say hello, a tenth grader now, bright and polite and seemingly happy. I’d told Kavitha I’d wanted to interview Esha, but in the event I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It didn’t feel right to interrupt a fourteen-year-old’s good mood with a journalistic interrogation about her aunt’s murder. Anyway, I knew how she felt because she’d published an essay about it a few months before. “One of the feelings I have thought about the most is pain,” Esha wrote. “A year has passed but I feel the pain as if it was yesterday. Maybe I am not crying anymore like I was back then, but the void inside me still feels just as deep as it did that day. Initially, I felt very angry towards the killers. I wanted to hurt them the way they hurt her. I wanted them to experience the pain we felt. I still do. But the bitter truth is that my aunt will not come back even if they suffer.”

Gauri had always had a special connection with children; “in her spontaneity, she was like a child,” her friend Mamta Sagar wrote. She kept a stash of little toys to give to friends’ kids when they visited. If someone brought a kid to one of her parties, she’d sit on the floor and devote her attention to them. “She was very genuinely interested,” Vivek Shanbhag told me. “And they loved her, because she was very gentle with them.”

Esha was born just seven months before Gauri Lankesh Patrike debuted, and she was the only thing that could pull Gauri away from her newspaper and her activism. When she was little, Esha wrote, Gauri would tell her bedtime stories of Cinderella—but Gauri’s Cinderella was always a career woman who would never pine for a prince and who had adventures on her own terms. When Esha was older, Gauri would take her to hear speeches by student activists or make her watch them on YouTube. But she didn’t want children of her own. In a 2015 interview, Pratibha Nandakumar made Gauri laugh by asking her how her life would be different if she were married. “They’d have left me by now!” Gauri said, listing her weekly, her publishing work, her activism, and her court cases. “This leaves no room for me to miss anything. I am not one of those ‘traditional Indian women.’ ” At some point she had an abortion; I’d heard from one friend that she’d been pushed into it and regretted it, but Kavitha told me this wasn’t so.

“I knew what she did, I knew what she loved and I knew especially what she hated, but I did not know how many lives she had influenced,” Esha wrote. She was astonished to see how many thousands showed up to view her body. “I wish I had spent more time with her,” she wrote. “I wish I had told her more often how truly I loved her. I wish I had told her how proud I was of her and the work she did.”

A few days later finally got to meet with M. N. Anucheth, the lead investigator of the SIT. Now that his investigation was nearly complete—“95 percent done,” he said—he was able to talk and generous with his time. We met at the Bangalore police’s Criminal Investigation Department complex, which is where the SIT is headquartered, and as we passed through its generic white cubicles, he told me that now there were 15 members of the SIT, but at its peak there were no fewer than 226 police officers working on the investigation into Gauri’s murder, and 40 or 50 people whose contribution was significant. “It is not just a one-person show,” he said. “It was not Mr. B. K. Singh or it was not Anucheth who cracked the case. It was this SIT. So we always refer to ourselves as the team, never individually. That was a decision we took from the beginning: we swim together or sink together.” (Later in our conversation, though, he did single out Singh for praise: “I think he’s a genius! Very soft-spoken. His mind is always working. Even when he’s sleeping, I think he’s always thinking about this case.”)

Handsome, fit, and very serious, Anucheth walks fast and talks fast, although sometimes he’d freeze while searching for a word, apparently out of total exhaustion. (A few months earlier, citing his success in the Gauri investigation, the Supreme Court handed him an additional assignment as the new lead investigator for the Kalburgi assassination, on top of his primary duty as a deputy commissioner of police.) He wore a khaki uniform, a navy- blue beret, and a tidy black mustache, and laughed only when I asked him an unexpected question, but otherwise never smiled, and often winced.

From the police perspective, “it was a blind murder case,” he said. “The motive itself was not clear. We were groping in the dark. That was the biggest challenge. So we probed along the Naxal line, personal enmity, something to do with her official dealings, something to do with her writings, her personal life. A lot of people had filed defamation cases against her. There was a rumor that some Naxalites were unhappy with her, but we were able to talk with them and we sent feelers out, and that angle was ruled out. We probed even Indrajit Lankesh, because there was a fight with Gauri, and there was some bad blood, but it had been sorted out. We were not able to get clear direction. But we started eliminating the chaff from the grain.” He quoted a famous Sherlock Holmes line: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (In my experience, Indian Police Service officers love to quote Sherlock Holmes.) “We started closing in. There were only a few angles remaining. Finally we narrowed it down to this right-wing thing.” The clincher for focusing on the right-wing angle, he said, came around two months into the investigation, when ballistic testing definitively proved that the same gun had been used to kill three of the victims in the pattern: Gauri, Kalburgi, and Pansare. Pansare had been shot with two guns, and the SIT was furthermore confident that the second gun used to shoot Pansare was also used on Dabholkar, the first victim in the pattern—meaning that only two guns were used for all four murders. One of the suspects told the SIT that he’d thrown the guns into Vasai Creek, near Mumbai. The Central Bureau of Investigation was now attempting to search the creek for the weapons. It sounded like an enormous headache, not least because the search was constrained by environmental regulations since the creek is a protected mangrove area.

Before filing their 9,235-page charge sheet, the SIT had invoked Karnataka’s organized-crime law—a move that suggested that Gauri’s murder had been committed on behalf of a larger organization or syndicate. The invocation of the organized-crime law also had the benefit of extending the deadline to submit the document by another ninety days. The reason the charge sheet needed to be so unusually long, Anucheth explained, is that there were no direct eyewitnesses to the murder—and under Indian law “ocular evidence” is paramount. That, he said, was their second-biggest challenge. So they had to collect an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence to compensate for the shortcoming.

Among the sixteen men so far arrested, he said, “some have been very reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. Some have cooperated with the investigation. I would say that the person who shot her did cooperate with the investigation.” He said that they had custody of Parashuram Waghmare, the suspected shooter, for fifteen days, and he cried the entire time. In contrast, Amol Kale, the man they suspect of being the group’s ringleader, “just doesn’t care. He’s remorseless, just so coldhearted.” But when Kale realized how much they’d already figured out, “he was shocked. We were able to tell him that whether you cooperate or not, we’re going to find out. The shock on his face—that was good.

“This gang had done everything possible to conceal themselves,” he said. “It was very carefully and meticulously planned. They conspired, they planned, they rehearsed, they practiced, they executed. All five stages were done very professionally. The amount of evidence we get is very less. So we had to use some scientific techniques.”

Their first breakthrough after the ballistic match was aided by machine- learning analysis of phone data. First they compiled a list of phone numbers associated with thousands of different extremists, both on the left and on the right, and focused on calls placed in the two or three months leading up to Gauri’s murder. Based on the patterns they detected, they put a small number of people on the list under surveillance and intercepted their phone calls. “One of them happened to be K. T. Naveen Kumar,” he said. “He was not known to us before this. We were not initially sure of it.” But then, in late October 2017, they listened in on a phone call in which Naveen Kumar told a friend that he’d been in hiding because of Gauri’s murder. “At random, why would a person talk about Gauri’s case?” he asked. “And why would he be absconding? We continued our surveillance. Then we realized they were planning the murder of Professor Bhagawan.”

They also collected all of the Bangalore traffic police’s CCTV footage from a five-kilometer radius around Gauri’s house and used artificial intelligence to pick out all motorcycles carrying two helmet-wearing people. This process helped them determine exactly one thing: the make and model of the motorcycle. Based on its local prevalence, this reduced the number of possible motorcycles from around five million to around thirty thousand.

They used AI, too, to help generate images of some of the suspects still at large. The accused deliberately knew very little about each other, precisely to make it difficult for the police if any of them got caught. “So we’ll get probably a fake number, fake name, fake accent,” he said. “The only thing we’ll get real about him is his physical description.” These images helped them make their second arrest, Sujith Kumar, whom they knew little about aside from what Naveen Kumar told them.

Local tech companies aided the SIT with these AI and machine-learning techniques, he said. “They don’t want to be named. But there are two companies which helped us.” I said that he must have had a lot of help to choose from, given that Bangalore tech firms are where lots of AI innovation is happening. “It’s…happening, but not many people want to cooperate once they realize it’s a criminal investigation,” he said. “They don’t want to get involved. It was difficult to find a company which does it and is willing. We did find. They did help us out. And we are very grateful for that.”

In the CCTV footage recovered from Gauri’s house, the shooter appears for only six seconds, and his face is obscured by his motorcycle helmet. And because it was night, the camera was shooting on infrared mode, which further muddied the image. “We had to prove very rudimentary things, like, is this the same guy, was he at the spot?” Anucheth said. “So we did something called gait analysis.” In June 2018, after the SIT captured Parashuram Waghmare, they brought him to Gauri’s house and had him reenact the shooting to see if he moved in the same manner as the figure in the footage. “We reconstructed the entire sequence of events and recorded it using the same CCTV camera, and then it was matched frame by frame.”

Another suspect took the police to a wooded area where Waghmare and the other conspirators had practiced shooting. The SIT came equipped with an EDAX machine (for energy dispersive X-ray analysis). “We looked for holes in the trees, and we’d use this machine to see if there’s any copper or iron in it. That means a bullet has passed through, and we’d just cut it down and find it.” One of those bullets was a ballistic match for the ones that struck Gauri.

Given how little many of the suspects knew about each other, the interrogations were a challenge. “They kept the information compartmentalized,” Anucheth said. “It was on a need-to-know basis. There was only so much he could tell you. So it is like doing a big jigsaw puzzle where you have only few pieces of the puzzle.” Sometimes it was literally a puzzle—the police had to decode hundreds of phone numbers written in a cipher and dozens of aliases and code names that they found in the diaries they recovered from five of the suspects. Mostly, though, the contents of the diaries were genuinely diaristic. “Generally their feelings, their perceptions in life, daily thoughts,” he said. “There is a rule in Sanatan Sanstha that you have to write your own faults. A lot of the diaries had this kind of faultfinding. So one guy writes that he had a dream about a girl and he had those nasty thoughts. They write down their faults, and they discuss it, and he tries to overcome it. That’s one of the techniques in their cult. It did give us an insight into their psychology.” The killers, it turns out, were writers, too. Unfortunately for me, their diaries are not included in the charge sheet.

Finally, there was genetic evidence. At one of the group’s hideouts, the SIT found a few strands of hair. DNA testing matched them to Amol Kale, the suspected ringleader. DNA was also essential when the SIT recovered four toothbrushes. One of the suspects had been tasked with destroying all the killers’ clothing and other personal effects. He was supposed to have burned everything, but the things he couldn’t destroy by burning he threw on the roadside on the outskirts of Bangalore; every hundred yards or so he’d throw more evidence out of his car window. When the SIT captured him, he showed them the spots where he’d tossed the items. They found a bag with four toothbrushes in it, and one of the toothbrushes was a DNA match for Waghmare, the shooter.

Anucheth seemed entirely unbothered by the constant criticism the SIT received when it appeared to the public that they had made no progress in the first half year after Gauri’s murder. “Naturally, we were derided, teased,criticized, mocked,” he said. “There was a lot of sarcasm spewed on us. But that never affected us, because when you’re doing a professional job, you can’t put a time limit on it.”

I asked him about the suspects’ allegations that they’d been tortured in custody. He groaned audibly. “Yeah, see, this is a standard tactic adopted by this set of advocates for this organization wherein they make allegations against everyone,” he said. “Right from the beginning they started making allegations against the police, citing custodial torture, assault, ill treatment.” He categorically denied that the SIT had tortured or otherwise mistreated the suspects.

I noted that the charge sheet includes the entirety of the Sanatan Sanstha book Kshatradharma Sadhana and asked him if the SIT had concluded that the killers were taking orders from the group. “There’s a link which is missing,” he said. He said that they know that the group was inspired by the writings of Sanatan Sanstha, and at least four of the accused had been members of the group, but the SIT found that they quit the Sanatan Sanstha “specifically to go underground” and start their nameless assassination syndicate. “Specifically whether the orders came from Sanatan Sanstha, we have not been able to prove conclusively.” He said that they came quite close; in the course of their investigation, they found that the top editor of Sanatan Sanstha’s daily newspaper—Shashikant Rane, alias Kaka—was very close to the assassins. But Rane died of a heart attack in April 2018, before the SIT knew of his involvement and before they’d arrested anyone but Naveen Kumar. He seemed to think that the moment to directly implicate Sanatan Sanstha had passed. Two of the suspects named in the charge sheet were still at large, but he did not expect any additional people to be charge sheeted.

I asked him about the reports that a local TV news channel had ruined the SIT’s plan to arrest one suspect at a wedding. Anucheth laughed with surprise, then looked miserable. “Yeah, it happened,” he said. “It’s all water under the bridge.” In the end they did capture the suspect, albeit several months later. “The setback was that someone on our team had leaked operational information,” he said. “I was more worried about that, because it would put the operation in jeopardy and my team on the ground in physical danger.” The officer responsible was removed from the SIT. After that, the SIT members shared their findings with each other only on a need-to-know basis. It occurred to me that this precaution paralleled the way the killers compartmentalized information.

I asked him if he had any concerns that any member of the SIT might be politically sympathetic to right-wing extremism. This struck me as highly probable, given that hundreds of policemen were assigned to the SIT at its peak. “Well, I think we were lucky to have a very professional investigation team which put aside its personal ideology or personal beliefs and just concentrated on doing the job at hand,” he said. “I don’t for a single instant believe any of our people were compromised or put their personal beliefs or ideologies ahead of their own professional work. I think we were lucky. This team was handpicked. So that helped. I myself, I’m a practicing Hindu. And that doesn’t mean that I have to compromise on my work. I mean, see, I don’t care who’s sitting next to me in a train, man. Or when I go to a hotel, I don’t ask, has it been used by somebody? I will not use that plate. When I’m traveling in a flight, I don’t mind chatting up the next person. I don’t ask him what is his religion or what is his caste. Majority of us are like that.”

I asked him if, in the Indian police in general, there are political sympathies in one direction or another that interfere with police work. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve been in the service for ten years. Never have I found any political party or anybody telling us to work in one particular way or favor one particular—never. See, end of the day, any person sitting in a responsible position understands the gravity of the situation. You cannot have a situation where people are killed for their voice or their beliefs. I think freedom of speech and expression is a fundamental right, and I think we should do everything in our power to uphold it. And everybody does so. There are some fundamental things which everybody believes in like the right to life, the right to speech. Everybody should uphold it, and they do uphold it. I’m talking about people in power. Otherwise it’s not possible to have a democracy. Democracy is on some fundamental principles. I think there’s a lot of focus in one section of the media to highlight intolerance, or so-called atrocities against the minorities. But I don’t think it is true. I think it is a perception created by certain sections of the media. No government supports any of these activities. When they come to the responsible post, everybody behaves responsibly.”

It was one of the naivest things I’ve ever heard anyone say, and it was impossible that such an intelligent and perceptive man could be that naive. We were inundated with evidence of irresponsibility and intolerance among those in authority. It’s well documented that Hindu nationalists work systematically to increase their numbers in India’s police forces, and that Hindutva militias have often worked closely with police during riots and pogroms. But Anucheth said it with total conviction, and he made a point of saying it. Maybe the only way to function in India as an honest cop, as Anucheth seemed to be, was to lie to yourself.

(The first excerpt was published some days ago and may be read here. The second excerpt may be read here.

Parts four will soon be published which is the concluding excerpt of the book.)

Note from the Editors: We would like to express our heartfelt solidarity with the family of Gauri Lankesh, Indira Lankesh, Kavitha and Esha Laneksh, who have with pathos and determination built on the gaping vacuum created by Gauri Lankesh’s assassination. Gauri was also a close a dear activist friend of Sabrangindia’s co-editor, Teesta Setalvad.

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10 years since Narendra Dabholkar’s murder, protest in Mumbai, SC asks CBI to look into ‘larger conspiracy’

Firing at the Heart of Truth: Remembering MM Kalburgi

Teesta Setalvad On Assault On Reason

Death of a Rationalist: Govind Pansare

Contrasting two lists: one with “facts” on right-wing deaths, the second, targeting other writers after Gauri Lankesh

Storms battered her from outside, but she stood, an unwavering flame: Gauri Lankesh

Honour for killers of Gauri Lankesh and MM Kalburgi in Karnataka, public felicitation and terms like “Hindu tigers” for accused Amit Baddi and Ganesh…

Protest in Karnataka as activists condemns felicitation of Gauri Lankesh murder accused by right-wing groups

Murderers or Martyrs? The dangerous glorification of murdered Gauri Lankesh’s accused by Hindutva groups

Gauri Lankesh assassination: 6 years down, no closure for family and friends, justice elusive

The post Delving into the hearts and minds of ‘killers’ who took the life of journalist-activist, Gauri Lankesh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

While District Judge Ashish Aggarwal quashed the gag order as it applied to four journalists — Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das, and Ayush Joshi — another bench led by District Judge Sunil Chaudhary heard and reserved judgment on a similar appeal filed by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

The result is a split: four journalists regain freedom to publish, while Guha — a veteran journalist who has consistently reported on the Adani Group — as well as John Doe (the rest of the un-named world) remains gagged until his appeal is decided.

The September 6 Gag Order: A blanket injunction

On September 6, 2025, Special Senior Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh (Rohini Courts) passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction in favour of Adani Enterprises Ltd. (AEL). The order targeted both journalists, including Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das, Ayush Joshi, and websites such as pranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org, adanifiles.com.au.

Findings: The judge recorded that reports were “incorrect, unverified, and prima facie defamatory.”

Directions:

• Journalists restrained from “publishing/distributing/circulating unverified, unsubstantiated and ex-facie defamatory reports” about Adani Enterprises.
• Ordered to expunge defamatory material from articles, social media posts, and tweets, or remove them entirely within five days.
• Intermediaries required, under IT Rules 2021, to disable access to flagged content within 36 hours, while preserving records for 180 days.
• Liberty to Adani to supply links/URLs of allegedly defamatory material to intermediaries for direct takedown.
• Scope extended to future publications, allowing the plaintiff to identify and seek removal of material not yet published.

While the order claimed to respect Article 19(1)(a) by allowing “fair, verified reporting,” its net effect was a blanket, John Doe–style injunction that outsourced censorship to the plaintiff and intermediaries, effectively criminalising future criticism.

The complete order may be read here.

Appeal of Ravi Nair and Others: Submissions and relief

The four journalists — Nair, Dasgupta, Das, and Joshi — appealed before District Judge Ashish Aggarwal (MCA No. DJ/30/2025).

Submissions by the journalists: Appearing for them, Advocate Vrinda Grover, assisted by Nakul Gandhi, Soutik Banerjee, and Devika Tulsiani, made the following arguments:

• No urgency: Most of the impugned publications were already in the public domain since June 2024. The plaintiff waited over a year and then sought an “extraordinary and exceptional relief” ex-parte.
• Lack of reasoning: The trial court had provided no reasoning for branding the reports as “unverified” or “defamatory.” Many articles relied on official material, including:
  • Statements by the Kenyan government, and
  • A Swiss judgment.
• Blanket injunction: The gag was a “John Doe order” extending to hundreds of videos and posts, and even to future material.
• Freedom of the press: Grover reminded the court that the press acts as the vehicle for citizens’ right to free expression.
• Locus questioned: Since some articles dealt with Gautam Adani personally, Grover argued that AEL had no locus to sue on his behalf, especially as Gautam Adani himself had not approached the court.

Submissions by Adani Enterprises: Represented by Senior Advocate Jagdeep Sharma and Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, Adani argued:

• The journalists were conducting a deliberate campaign of malicious targeting.
• Every retweet, like, or republication amounted to fresh defamation, justifying urgent relief.
• The suit was prompted by a podcast in August 2025 that allegedly reignited circulation of defamatory content.
• The ex-parte order was lawful under CPC, and the defendants could have approached the trial court under Order 39 Rule 4 to vacate it.
• Journalists were allegedly under NIA probe for Chinese funding, questioning their credibility.

Judge Aggarwal’s findings: After hearing both sides, Judge Aggarwal quashed the September 6 gag order as it applied to the four appellants.

Key reasoning:

1. Violation of natural justice: The Judge held that unless the appellants are heard, it is not open to the court to infer that they have made unverified, inaccurate and irresponsible statements.
2. Chilling effect:
   • The order stated that by extending to future articles, the injunction created a “sword hanging over” journalists, exposing them to contempt without prior adjudication.
   • Intermediaries were left to decide what was defamatory, a function reserved for the courts.
3. Irreversible harm: As per the judge, the effect of removal of the articles by an ad interim ex-parte order is sweeping and has the effect of decreeing the suit itself without a trial because the articles cannot be restored.
4. Procedural Breach:
   • The trial court fixed the next date for October 9 — outside the 30-day limit in Order 39 Rule 3A CPC for adjudicating interim injunctions.
   • By doing so, it “disempowered itself”.

Order: The September 6 gag order was set aside insofar as the four appellants are concerned. The matter was remitted to the trial court to hear both parties afresh on September 26 and decide by October 15. Importantly, the judge clarified that no finding on merits was being made.

The complete order may be read here.

The Guha Appeal: Submissions and status

Separately, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta — also a defendant in the September 6 order — filed an appeal before District Judge Sunil Chaudhary.

Guha’s arguments (via Sr. Adv. Trideep Pais, Advocates Apar Gupta & team):

• The injunction was overbroad, covering even Adani Group companies not party to the suit.
• The trial court failed to identify which parts of his articles were defamatory, issuing a blanket restraint.
• Many articles were old (2017, 2023), making the plea of urgency untenable.
• The injunction outsourced censorship to intermediaries, leaving the plaintiff to decide what was defamatory.
• Guha had material to substantiate his reporting, but was denied an opportunity to present it.

Adani’s response (via Sr. Advs. Anurag Ahluwalia, Jagdeep Sharma, Vijay Aggarwal):

• Guha had engaged in a persistent campaign of vilification.
• Articles likening Adani to Elon Musk and suggesting Modi promoted him abroad were defamatory per se.
• Allegations of scams were made without evidence, harming market reputation.
• Reliance placed on the Supreme Court’s clean chit in the Hindenburg matter.

Court: District Judge Sunil Chaudhary reserved verdict on Guha’s appeal. Until then, the gag order remains operative against him.

Defamation as a weapon

The Adani gag order litigation illustrates, in stark terms, how defamation law can be converted from a protective remedy into a powerful weapon of silencing. Both the trial court’s September 6 injunction and the fragmented relief granted on appeal show how civil defamation proceedings, especially when combined with ex-parte interim orders, can become tools of censorship rather than adjudication.

1. Fragmented outcomes: The September 6 gag order was sweeping in scope, binding multiple journalists and even websites in one stroke. Yet when appeals were filed, the outcome splintered: Judge Ashish Aggarwal quashed the injunction for four journalists — Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das, and Ayush Joshi — but Judge Sunil Chaudhary reserved judgment on Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s appeal, leaving him still gagged. This fragmented relief underscores how procedural happenstance can fracture the landscape of press freedom. For the same order, some are free to write, while others remain restrained, illustrating how defamation litigation can divide journalists and create unequal shields against censorship.
2. Blanket nature of the gag: The trial court’s injunction went far beyond restraining specific contested articles. It extended to future publications, empowered Adani Enterprises to directly flag content for takedown, and even covered Adani Group companies not party to the suit. In effect, the court deputised a private corporation to decide what was defamatory, reducing the judiciary to a rubber stamp. This blanket approach transformed defamation from a narrow legal shield into a censorship weapon, undermining both due process and the principle of proportionality in restrictions on speech.
3. Chilling effect: Perhaps most insidious was the injunction’s chilling effect. By threatening contempt without prior adjudication, the order created a climate of fear not only among the defendants but across the wider journalistic community. A journalist considering a future report on Adani would know that any critical statement could, at Adani’s discretion, be branded defamatory and removed by intermediaries within 36 hours. This sword of silence deters even legitimate reporting, showing how defamation can be wielded not to correct falsehoods but to prevent scrutiny altogether.
4. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs): The case fits the textbook profile of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). SLAPPs are not designed to win on legal merits but to impose the process as punishment: draining time, money, and energy of journalists, forcing them into prolonged litigation simply to preserve their right to publish. The September 6 order — sweeping, ex-parte, and extended to future works — exemplifies how corporations can deploy defamation suits as a tool of intimidation, deterring watchdog journalism by turning the courtroom into a battlefield of attrition.
5. Appellate vigilance but limited reach: Judge Aggarwal’s ruling offers an important corrective, restoring procedural fairness by emphasising that journalists must be heard before their work is branded defamatory. He noted that once articles are removed, the damage cannot be undone, making ex-parte injunctions equivalent to decreeing the suit itself. Yet his quashing applied only to the four appellants before him. For Guha and others, the gag persists. This limited scope highlights the structural weakness of fragmented relief: while vigilance at the appellate stage is commendable, the chilling effect continues as long as parts of the injunction remain operative. Defamation as a weapon, once unleashed, cannot be fully neutralised by piecemeal judicial correction.

Conclusion

The Adani gag order saga demonstrates how civil defamation, when coupled with ex-parte injunctions, can be weaponised against investigative journalism. The September 6 order was not merely a protective measure; it was a far-reaching censorship tool. The appellate court’s partial quashing restores some balance, but by leaving other journalists still bound, it reveals the vulnerabilities of India’s press to fragmented judicial relief and corporate litigation strategies.

In this sense, the case is more than a private dispute: it is a cautionary tale of how defamation law, if unchecked, can mutate into a mechanism of silencing, punishing those who speak truth to power, and warning others not to even try.

For Ravi Nair and three others, the gag order is gone, at least temporarily. For Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, it still looms, pending judgment.

The episode reveals both the danger of sweeping ex-parte gag orders and the piecemeal nature of appellate relief in India’s courts. Until broader judicial clarity emerges, investigative journalism remains vulnerable to corporate defamation suits wielded as instruments of censorship.

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The post Adani Gag Orders Face Judicial Scrutiny: Four journalists secure relief, Guha’s appeal still pending appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Reports indicate that the police were instructed to register the case under new penal provisions in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Act, specifically “promoting enmity between groups” (Section 196) and “acts against national integration” (Section 197), after initially declining to file an FIR, suggesting a judicial order was preferred.

The Broadcast’s Framing Under Scrutiny

In the complaint filed, Thakur argued that to deem Partition as an “unfinished project” was dangerous language that lent credence to questioning the legitimacy of Muslims who chose to remain in India after 1947.

Kashyap remarked during the programme: “यह विभाजन धर्म के आधार पर हुआ लेकिन मैं आपको दिखाती हूं कि जिस मकसद से ये विभाजन किया गया था वह मकसद कभी पूरा ही नहीं हुआ.” (This Partition happened based on religion, but I will show on the big screen that the purpose for which this Partition was carried out was never fulfilled.) She referenced migration figures that suggested that India has a population of four crore Muslims, of which only 96 Lakh migrated to Pakistan, and more Hindus migrated into India. She compared the number of Hindus emigrating from East and West Pakistan to Muslims emigrating from India. She used this as evidence that the religious basis for Partition had not been fulfilled.

The complaint points out that these numbers were inconsistent (at times 96 lakh, at other times 72 lakh) and were used to inflame division. Further, the social media caption accompanying the broadcast — “Out of 4 crores, only 96 lakh Muslims went to Pakistan! What has happened to the purpose of Partition?” — intensified the attempt at divisiveness. Thakur claimed this framing was “venomous, destructive, and divisive,” emphasizing the timing of the post, aiming to inflame possible animosity rather than facilitate debate, on the eve of Independence Day.

In a nutshell, the complaint states that the framing of the episode and selective statistics crossed the line from historical discussion to communal provocation, raising the question of Muslims’ belonging in India and undermining nation-building.

The Targeting of the Anchor, and not the Network

The complaint focuses entirely on Anjana Om Kashyap, completely ignoring the liability of the news channel and the producers of the show. This illustrates a typical prosecutorial trend: complaints about speech that airs on broadcast usually starts with the anchor, who is the most visible face of the programme. They frame the conversation and speak the words on air, which makes them the most identifiable responsible person.

Legally, this is grounded in Section 196 and Section 197 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Section 196: “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, caste, language or community, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different groups.”

Section 197: “Whoever, by words either spoken or written… does any act prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, regional or language groups or castes or communities, and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquillity or which is prejudicial to the integration of India.”

As these provisions target the speaker or publisher of offending words, it is obvious that the anchor will be the first possible target. In contrast, attaching liability to the producers or the network would require some evidence of intent (at the organisational level), such as editorial instructions or policy documents, evidence that complainants are virtually never in possession of at the time of filing.

Nevertheless, broadcasters are subject to the terms of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, which disallows certain programming. Rule 6 of the Programme Code, 1994 states, programming that “offends good taste or decency; criticizes friendly countries; attacks religions or communities; or is likely to encourage or incite violence or contain anything against maintenance of law and order, or which promotes anti-national attitudes”. Enforcement of this act is administrative, with warnings, advisories, and the suspension of the transmission.

In practice, then, while anchors personify the criminal complaints through the BNS, networks face longer regulatory and civil enforcement under the Cable Act (i.e., through the NBDSA censoring channels, on multiple complaints, for coverage depicted bias). It is this distinction that explains that Kashyap is in the first position in naming; even as it remains an open question, it ought to aptly reflect organization-wide editorial responsibility.

The Need for Networks to Bear Responsibility

Although anchors are a visible part of the television programme, they do not simply determine what is “in” and “out” of a broadcast. Even when anchors say what we call “the cue,” editorial parameters on framing, tickers, and promotional captions, e.g., “Out of 4 crore Muslims, only 96 Lakh went to Pakistan! Why was the purpose of Partition not attained?” unequivocally involve producers and management as well. When we advocate that the performance of values in context rests on anchors, we obscure the ability to hold the system accountable for shared risk.

The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, provides a statutory avenue to litigate network-level liability. The 1995 Reg Act includes Rule 6 of the Programme Code stating that programmes cannot (i) attack or denigrate religions or communities or (ii) likely to encourage or incite violence. The prohibitions apply to the corporate entity as the broadcaster; the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting could issue advisories, order programming take-downs, and suspend licenses of broadcasters in violation.

The News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) decisions establish that networks do shoulder accountability, engaging even where an individual’s utterances lead to systemic failures in providing appropriate editorial guidance.

Consequently, a two-pronged strategy is required. The BNS may impose criminal liability on the anchor for their words on air, and yet there are regulatory and self-regulatory structures that can scrutinise the network. Only by joining personal and institutional accountability can remedies, or responses, be more than just a symbolic sanction and can provide robust monitoring of inciting broadcasts.

Law, Liability and the Limits of Broadcast Freedom

Anjana Om Kashyap’s complaint is not just a single incident of a journalist failing to uphold self-regulation, but part of a broader, troubling trend regarding journalism in Indian broadcast media. Over the last decade, prime time debates have blurred the line between reporting the news and inflammatory rhetoric, with news anchors embracing combative formats that normalize steady and increasing polarization. Courts and regulators have had to resort to warning or restraining these excesses, recognizing the tension between free speech, the right to express opinions, Article 19 (1) (a) the fundamental right to freely express opinion and feelings in India, and state responsibilities under Article 19(2) to reasonably restrict in the interests of harm, public order and peace.

Judicial rulings created problems with this balancing act. In the Sudarshan News “UPSC Jihad” case (2020), the Supreme Court stated free speech did not give license to cast aspersions or malign any community or individual, and restrained the broadcast temporarily pending consideration of a code of ethics. Before and after the Sudarshan News ruling, High Courts have intervened with varying balances. The Delhi High Court in 2020 cautioned broadcasters that the constitutional threshold did not allow hate violence to abide. Overall, precedential rulings show us courts are not reluctant to intervene if and when the media, as news reporting, crosses the threshold from commentary critical of violence or hate to incitement.

Interventions before the NBDSA have already illustrated the efficacy of complaints in recalibrating the course. The NBDSA, in recent years, has censured channels such as Times Now Navbharat and Zee News for coverage that was found to be partial; ordered the revocation of a misleading ticker; and noted, when addressing anchors participating in sensitive debates, that neutrality is required. These decisions clarify that journalists and anchors, as custodians of public deliberation, must practice restraint and cannot rely on the protection of free speech to underwrite their framing when it leads to communal discord.

The Lucknow case is part of a broader effort to hold mainstream media accountable for its third-party functions. Free speech is one of the pillars of democracy in India, but it is not absolute; Article 19 (2) lays out the balancing act between liberty and public order, or harmony. When behaviour or content from a newsroom turns the journalist or a news anchor into a provocateur, it creates communal discord and political polarization, which undermines the credibility of journalism, therefore, the right to free speech and academic freedom. Legal interventions – criminal complaints, Cable Act enforcement, or internal rules/regulations – are not meant to silence the press, but to remind them that the right to speak correlates with the responsibility to inform responsibly, and contribute to the common good through public deliberation.

Balancing Free Speech and Communal Harmony

The Lucknow court’s order against Anjana Om Kashyap represents a clear signal from the judiciary of rising impatience with primetime broadcasts that shift from hard news commentary to communal provocation. By doing so, the court’s action says not only that accountability of the anchor is needed, while the network is virtually let off the hook – it addresses this issue unevenly. However, this court ruling is also a possible opportunity to consider how the judicial, institutional, and experiential liability may be expanded to ensure responsibility for both anchor and network. The constitutional question still to be resolved is how to balance free speech with the state’s obligation to protect public order in a state of discontent. Speech can only be sanctioned for discomfort, not for disingenuous interruption of social harmony. For a democracy like India, the work is not to punish one anchor or one show, but rather to build systemic safeguards – through criminal law, policy regulation, and ethically responsible newsroom practice – that allow journalism to inform, interrogate, and unite stories rather than mislead and divide stories.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Image: livelaw.in

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The post Between Free Speech and Public Order: Dissecting the complaint against Anjana Om Kashyap appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Following the bloody assassination of Gauri Lankesh on September 5, 2017, in the lead up to state elections in Karnataka, the right-wing rumour-mill began circulating “information” about 24 murders of so-called members of the supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming a moral equivalence to the deaths of four slain rationalists. Romig’s investigations into these claims, evident in this excerpt, not just unravelled the truth but also speaks of the de-humanisation that such equivalence ensures. That was the first list. The second list is more chilling, it was unearthed during the investigations into Gauri’s murder by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that found two lists of names—the thirty-four people whom the conspirators ostensibly planned or hoped to kill! This included the veteran theatre director and public intellectual, Girish Karnad, the professor and translator, K.S. Bhagawan, Nataraj Huliyar, and CS Dwarkanath both regular contributor to Lankesh Patrike. This excerpt elaborates on this second list too.

The editors are thankful to the author and to Westland Books for permission to publish this excerpt.

CHAPTER 17

The Lists

Vish’s words troubled me. I knew that I could never fully understand all the complex forces at work in a place where I was just a visitor, no matter how much I interviewed and studied and commissioned translations of texts whose languages I couldn’t read. I worried, for one, about the complaint that so many BJP members had thrown at me on my last visit to Bangalore when I asked them about Gauri’s murder: that some two dozen Hindu activists have been murdered in Karnataka in recent years by Muslim fanatics, but that neither the press nor the police care—they care only about Gauri Lankesh. I worried that they were right and that my own obvious biases had blinded me.

During the 2018 state election campaign, the complaints about the twenty- four murders only grew. “Condemn the killing of BJP and RSS workers under Congress rule,” Amit Shah, the president of the BJP, said on an election-season visit to Karnataka. “More than 24 workers have died and the police hasn’t taken any action against the killers. They are roaming around free.” Modi said that the BJP is about “ease of doing business,” while the Congress in Karnataka is about “ease of doing murders.” Many BJP leaders said that all twenty-four were murdered by “terrorists.”

I followed up repeatedly with two BJP leaders who’d told me about the murders when I visited party headquarters in January, asking them to provide me with a list of names so that I could learn more, but neither responded. As far as I could find, an actual list had circulated only once: in July 2017, the legislator Shobha Karandlaje submitted a complaint to the central government with a list of twenty-three men who she said were “Hindu activists” who had been murdered by “jihadi elements.” “IT IS A BLOOD BATH IN KARNATAKA,” the letter begins. Fortunately for me, in February and March 2018, a superb and intrepid reporter for the website Scroll named Sruthisagar Yamunan spent weeks traveling around Karnataka to investigate each of the twenty-three names first-hand. One of the names on Karandlaje’s list, he noted, was ambiguous, and could refer to two different victims, so he investigated both, bringing the total number of cases up to twenty-four. He met with the families of all but one of the men on the list, talked to as many investigating officers as possible, and studied every police report.

Yamunan discovered that the very first man on the list is not, in fact, dead. (To her credit, Karandlaje called the man to apologize for including him after his aliveness came to light.) Two committed suicide. Two were apparently murdered by their sisters. According to police and families, the motives for a majority of the murders were real estate, political, or romantic rivalries. Three of the victims could in no way be described as Hindu activists. Among those who were, some were apparently killed by fellow Hindutva activists or BJP members. Several of the victims’ families made a point of telling Yamunan that they have no problem with Muslims and live in peace with their Muslim neighbours. And several were shocked and unhappy to learn that their loved ones’ names appeared on such a list. “I request people to not join any political party,” one widow told Yamunan; her husband, she said, was a BJP politician whose rival had hired a hit man to kill him. “They will use you and then throw you away.” Many of these non-jihad motives, Yamunan found, were clearly reported in local newspapers long before Karandlaje compiled her list.

In ten cases, Yamunan found, the accused perpetrators were indeed Muslim. All of these perpetrators were linked specifically to a hard-line Islamist organization called the People’s Front of India, or PFI, that operates in Kerala and Karnataka. And most of these ten murders occurred in coastal Karnataka, the region of the state where religious tensions run deepest, especially in Mangalore, a diverse city of around half a million people that’s known as a banking and university centre.

Kavitha told me that in coastal Karnataka the political climate is so fraught that news vendors kept Gauri’s paper hidden, offering it for sale only when asked. “If they kept it out in the stall, the owner would be beaten up,” she said. It wasn’t always this way. Mangalore used to be famous as a cosmopolitan, progressive city. Gauri had a particular admiration for Mangalore’s history of social reform, including an early school for Dalits. The novelist Vivek Shanbhag, who grew up in coastal Karnataka, wrote that decades ago there was a shared sense of community among Hindus, Muslims, and Christians “that words like secularism and tolerance cannot capture.” More apt, he suggested, was the Kannada word “sahabalve,” which literally means “life together.” “Mangalore was a very, very forward looking, very educated place,” he told me. “I can’t believe that it has deteriorated to this level.”

Now Mangalore is perhaps the most religiously segregated corner of the state. A senior police officer who’s served for years in coastal Karnataka spoke to me about the situation on condition of anonymity, given its political sensitivity. In Mangalore, he said, the Muslim population is wealthier and better educated than in most places in India. This actually makes tensions worse, he said, because both Hindus and Muslims feel they are competing directly from positions of strength, and ostentatious consumption on the part of young men from both sides—nice cars, flashy motorcycles—tends to fan resentments. Another source of tension is that the Muslim prosperity is often new wealth, earned at lucrative jobs in the Gulf by Muslim men who in previous generations would likely have been farm laborers for Hindu landowners. And in recent years, both sides have become markedly more religiously conservative. As the Kannada novelist Sara Aboobacker put it, “There is Hindu Talibanisation and there is Muslim Talibanisation.”

In recent decades, the police officer said, especially after the destruction of the Babri Masjid, Hindus and Muslims have both built up aggressive religious organizations in coastal Karnataka, each egged on by the growth of the other side. But their memberships consist “mainly of these riffraff boys who had nothing else to do, who had a lot of money, and who didn’t hesitate to commit small crimes or revengeful crimes.” In particular, the PFI on the Muslim side and the Bajrang Dal on the Hindu side would provoke each other: the PFI stealing Hindu cows, the Bajrang Dal attacking Muslim cow transports. The Hindu side became very active with what’s known as “moral policing,” with a special focus on attacking Muslim boys who talked to or merely sat next to Hindu girls. The PFI reciprocated, attacking Hindu boys seen with Muslim girls (although much less often, he said). Often the two sides function simply as gangs, using religion as a cover for turf-based criminal operations, such as land grabbing and illegal sand mining. As they always do, the political parties treat the rival gangs opportunistically: the Congress Party patronizes the Muslim groups just as surely as the BJP patronizes the Hindutva groups. In its early years, Gauri’s Communal Harmony Forum often shared the stage with the PFI and its precursor, the Karnataka Forum for Dignity, naively accepting them as a Muslim rights organization. When the PFI’s culpability in communal disharmony became obvious, the Communal Harmony Forum cut ties with them.

The two sides clash often in street fights, the police officer told me, especially in election seasons. Some of these fights result in murders, and the murders have spun into an endless cycle of revenge killings, “always tit for tat.” A murder that happens in Mangalore today, he said, can usually be traced back in a chain to a murder that happened in 1999. In recent years there have been so many prison murders in Mangalore that the wardens have been forced to segregate Hindus and Muslims into separate barracks. In Mangalore, he noted, these retaliatory murders are never committed with guns, because a gun wound “doesn’t create that violent scene that is required to drive a message. So it is a policy that you actually commit these murders with sharp weapons and make many cuts on the body. The message should be very, very strong, so the brutality should be visible.”

He said it’s certainly true that Muslim fundamentalists committed some of the murders on Karandlaje’s list, and also that those victims have gotten far less attention than Gauri, but the context is completely different. Here, he said, it’s “rowdies trying to eliminate each other.” In 2022, the journalist Johnson T. A. did a study of communal murders in coastal Karnataka and found that most were retaliatory, with an equal number on each “side”; the murdered Muslim activists have gotten just as little popular attention as the Hindutva activists.

Yamunan reported that two of the ten murders committed by Muslims on Karandlaje’s list happened in street fights between Muslim and Hindu toughs at official celebrations of Tipu Sultan, which had become a flash point. Two others were reportedly murdered in revenge for aggressive cow-protection vigilantism (one of whose killers was later stabbed to death in prison with a serving spoon). Some cases blurred the line between religious conflict and gang war. In one case of a Hindu activist murdered by a Muslim activist, police told Yamunan that drug turf was a factor: the victim and perpetrator were both marijuana dealers. In the face of this rowdy, macho, endlessly retributive political violence, the RSS and BJP loudly play the victim without acknowledging that their side commits the same violence, racking up a comparable body count among their opponents. The murders on both sides are outrageous and intolerable. But they are not lynchings, nor are they assassinations of elderly writers on their doorsteps.

When the discrepancies in Karandlaje’s list were brought to her attention, she called it an “oversight” and said that she would release a revised list. She never did, and she was clearly unchastened. A few months later, she raised an even more inflammatory charge. In coastal Karnataka, an eighteen- year-old Hindutva activist named Paresh Mesta was found dead in a lake, and Karandlaje loudly and repeatedly insisted that “jihadi elements” had split his head open, poured boiling oil on his body, cut off his tattoos of Hindu symbols, and castrated him. The post-mortem report showed no signs of assault and concluded that he had slipped into the lake and drowned, most likely because he was drunk.

I feel that I now have the facts about the twenty-three or twenty-four murders that BJP leaders kept insisting that I examine. They were lying about those murders, and they knew they were lying. By constantly arguing in bad faith in this way, they make it impossible to engage seriously with their position. It’s an appalling thing to do.

But I’m also appalled with myself—I just spent sixteen hundred words arguing, essentially, that I should care less about those murders than the BJP thinks I should. I think often of a passage from an essay by T. M. Krishna, the renowned South Indian Carnatic singer. “The BJP and company have not only poisoned the minds of their own supporters, they have achieved a larger goal,” Krishna wrote. “They have made the rest of us crass and inhuman to the extent that we are unable to empathise when an RSS member is killed. Of course, this only makes their case for a monolithic Hindu Rashtra stronger and, hence, politically convenient. I know we need to stop this cycle, rediscover empathy, the ethical and sublime, but I do not know how.”

• • •

After the arrests of the first suspects for Gauri’s murder, a very different list came to light. On my previous visit to Bangalore, I’d learned that Indian progressives had developed a habit of talking, often with gallows humour, about the List: an imagined ranking of who was most likely to die next. It turned out that the List was real. In the diaries that the SIT recovered from the arrested men, they found two lists of names—the thirty-four people whom the conspirators ostensibly planned or hoped to kill. The first name on one list was Girish Karnad. The first on the other was K. S. Bhagawan, aged seventy-three, a highly outspoken professor and translator, whom the Sanatan Sanstha often denounced on their websites. devout hindu oruanizations demand immediate arrest of heretic prof. bhauayan! ran one of their headlines in 2015, after Bhagawan declared publicly that Rama is not a god. Two months after Gauri’s murder, police had to escort Bhagawan to safety after a fiery speech he delivered in his hometown of Mysore, a couple hours from Bangalore.

According to the SIT, the conspirators, after killing Gauri, had decided Bhagawan would be their next target. In early 2018, the SIT had been eavesdropping on the phone calls of the first arrestee, K. T. Naveen Kumar, and had at first planned to wait and keep listening in to gain more information on his co-conspirators. But when they realized from his conversations that an assassination attempt on Bhagawan was imminent, they swept in and arrested him.

One afternoon when I was in Mysore, I arranged to meet Bhagawan in the café of my hotel. A cheerful man with a shock of thick white hair, he entered briskly along with a large man in a shiny grey suit. “This is my gunman!” he explained. The bodyguard joined him, he said, in 2015. “I gave a lecture on the Bhagavad Gita, which is said to be a very important document of Hinduism,” he recalled. “Certain portions of the Gita must be burnt, I said. I did not burn them, but I said they should be.” Some people “didn’t like it,” he said, chuckling with delight at the memory. “They attacked my house, pelting stones and all that. Immediately the Karnataka government provided me security. There are three policemen in our house, and one gunman will be always with me.”

“It seems that this group that killed Gauri Lankesh also intended to go after you,” I said.

“But they will not,” he said blithely.

He seemed indifferent to my questions about threats and assassinations; he was more eager to discuss literature and philosophy, which he did with relish. He told me he “developed a critical attitude toward the so-called Hinduism” after reading Kuvempu, the greatest of Kannada poets, who wrote a version of the Ramayana that “removed all these Brahminical values.” The thing we call Hinduism, he said, is nothing more than Brahminism. “I don’t believe in religion,” he said. “I believe in spirituality.”

He talked in detail about his work translating English literature into Kannada, including a number of Shakespeare’s plays; more than once he sent the gunman to his car to see if he could find a copy of one or another of his books. He said that he’s now writing a new analysis of the Ramayana. “Nowhere is Rama an ideal person,” he said. “He was only a killer, killing person after person and branding them as demons.” I told him I didn’t think the stone throwers were going to like that one, either.

M. Kalburgi, he said, “was an intimate friend of mine. Great man. Great scholar. And a true follower of Basavanna.” Gauri, he said, published many of his articles in her paper, and also a book he wrote denouncing the

proposed Rama temple in Ayodhya. “The pity is, those who killed them, they’re all Shudras, non-Brahmins. They all belong to the lower strata of society. You see how Brahminism has brainwashed them. The ideology is given by the Brahmin, but no Brahmin is caught so far.”

After a while we went to his apartment, which is up a flight of stairs, with a terrace outside the door, upon which two uniformed police officers had set up a sort of sniper’s nest, complete with a massive semiautomatic gun laid out on a blanket. The cops rose to their feet as we ascended the stairs, then went back to their distractions from their boring job, one looking at videos on his phone, the other leafing through a newspaper.

I asked Bhagawan if he worried much about his safety. “No, no, no, not at all,” he said. “I feel very happy.” “You seem happy,” I said. “Why don’t you worry?”

“I don’t know,” he said, uninterested in the question. “My worry is about writing only. I must write well. I must read great books. That’s my only concern.” I asked him if his wife worried about his safety.

“No, no, no, not at all, not at all, not at all,” he said. “In fact, she told me, every man is going to die, today or tomorrow. Why worry? You do whatever work you want to do, she said. So, from that day onwards I became completely free of mortal concern. I don’t think about death at all. Death comes on its own. Why should I think of it?”

Girish Karnad also seemed unbothered that he’d topped a hit list. (His son, Raghu, told me later that Karnad was sceptical of these lists.) One well- connected journalist told me that according to the SIT the killers were casing Karnad’s house right around the time I visited him there in January. In August 2018, five prominent left-wing activists and intellectuals were arrested for supposedly inciting a riot; later they were additionally accused of plotting to assassinate Modi. In protest, Karnad attended an event marking the first anniversary of Gauri’s death, oxygen tank on his lap, wearing a sign around his neck that read me too urban naxal. “If speaking up means being a Naxal, then I am an urban Naxal,” he told reporters. “I am proud to be a part of the hit list.”

Others were feeling understandably less defiant. “I want to erase it,” said Nataraj Huliyar, a long-time writer for P. Lankesh’s paper whose name appeared on a list. “I’m afraid my mother might see it.”

Another name on a hit list was that of the lawyer C. S. Dwarakanath, who also wrote regularly for P. Lankesh. An armed policeman sits in the foyer of his office to protect him. A thoughtful, gentle man, Dwarakanath told me that as a student he was actually an RSS member, but Lankesh transformed him. Now his hero was Ambedkar, the author of the Indian Constitution and the prophet of Dalit liberation. He suspected that he was being targeted for a lecture he delivered in Mangalore that was critical of the proposed Rama temple in Ayodhya. There was an uproar when he said that nobody knows where Rama was born or his date of birth—but he was merely quoting the text of a Supreme Court ruling. His point, he said, was that “Rama is in the heart of the people. Don’t impose any Rama on them.” He cited the great mystic poet Kabir, who wrote that there were four Ramas: the first is on the throne of Ayodhya, the second is in the heart of every human, the third is in every particle, and the fourth is beyond human comprehension. “That was my argument,” he said. “They never understood it, because their minds are blocked.” (Bhagawan, he thought, spoke too harshly. “Some people have a very good opinion of Rama and Sita,” he said. “We should not hurt their feelings.”) He used to appear regularly on TV debates, but now that he’s on the hit list, his family won’t let him.

The police told Kavitha that Gauri was “a great soul” because her death had prevented all those people on the hit lists from being killed. “That makes you feel her death didn’t go in vain,” she said.

Note: The book which has been widely reviewed including by the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus and Tribune India was also a 2025 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction. The. The Pulitzer Board called it “a captivating account of a crusading South Indian’s murder, a mystery rich in local culture and politics that also connects to such global themes as authoritarianism, fundamentalism and other threats to free expression. Sabrangindia is grateful for permission from the authors and publishers to publish four excerpts, at intervals of the book. 

(The first excerpt was published some days ago and may be read here. Parts two, three and four of more excerpts from the book to be also published at intervals)

Note from the Editors: We would like to express our heartfelt solidarity with the family of Gauri Lankesh, Indira Lankesh, Kavitha and Esha Laneksh, who have with pathos and determination built on the gaping vacuum created by Gauri Lankesh’s assassination. Gauri was also a close a dear activist friend of Sabrangindia’s co-editor, Teesta Setalvad.

Related:

Storms battered her from outside, but she stood, an unwavering flame: Gauri Lankesh

Honour for killers of Gauri Lankesh and MM Kalburgi in Karnataka, public felicitation and terms like “Hindu tigers” for accused Amit Baddi and Ganesh…

Protest in Karnataka as activists condemns felicitation of Gauri Lankesh murder accused by right-wing groups

Murderers or Martyrs? The dangerous glorification of murdered Gauri Lankesh’s accused by Hindutva groups

Gauri Lankesh assassination: 6 years down, no closure for family and friends, justice elusive

The post Contrasting two lists: one with “facts” on right-wing deaths, the second, targeting other writers after Gauri Lankesh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Frankly—call it my inertia or whatever—I am not very familiar with Sainath’s recent writings, though from time to time I do read some of the very in-depth reports focusing on rural India on the excellent site he has been running for about a decade, People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), which is, for all practical purposes, a virtual database for learning or understanding anything about how people live and work in rural India.

Not that I wasn’t familiar with Sainath earlier. As part of a Times of India project, I remember reading his in-depth reports in the paper in the 1990s, after I joined in Ahmedabad in 1993. However, at that time, from what I can remember, he concentrated more on doing stories on rural India. The latest lecture, which he gave in Ahmedabad on September 6, 2025, for the first time familiarised me with his worldview on the increasing concentration of wealth in India—especially in the media—and how it is adversely impacting Indian democracy.

According to Sainath, this concentration of wealth began soon after Independence, when the Nehru government, in its bid to give a helping hand, gave away land to top media houses for peanuts at prime spots—for instance, in Nariman Point in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in Delhi. This, he said, turned them into real estate barons: building multi-storey buildings on these prime plots, the media houses rented out all other floors—except for one, kept for publishing the newspaper—helping them amass huge wealth.

Today, said Sainath, these media houses are also powerful real estate developers. He quoted an interview Vineet Jain, one of the owners of the Times of India group, gave to the New Yorker. Jain, according to him, said, “We are not in the newspaper business; we are in the advertising business.”

I immediately wondered if this was a sharp change from the view held in the mid-1990s, when, while addressing a few of us “seniors” of the Times of India, Vineet Jain’s elder brother, Samir Jain, had said we should remember the paper was in the business of news, emphasising that the Times of India was a family business and had no social agenda. Then he turned to the whiteboard behind him and wrote “liberal social agenda”, crossing it out. He turned to me to ask if I agreed, and out of curiosity, I asked him, “Sir, what about a liberal political agenda?” Visibly embarrassed, he quietly said, “That of course is there…”
Stating how media has changed over time with the rise of television and digital media, Sainath said the corporate hold over media has further solidified, with top tycoon Mukesh Ambani controlling nearly 40 percent of all media in India today, buying up stakes in one outlet after another. Also referring in passing to Gautam Adani’s takeover of NDTV, he pointed out that politicians too are now deeply involved in the media business—owning several TV channels across India, especially in the South.

Stating how this has adversely impacted media coverage, Sainath said, there are several reporters covering Bollywood and business, but was for poverty and rural India, which makes up to nearly two thirds of India, there is no reporter.

Giving figures worth trillions of rupees related to corporate ownership of Indian media, Sainath then discussed how, with the rise of digital media, there has been further concentration of wealth. According to him, four major corporate houses across the globe now control the strings of digital media—they have access to all the data uploaded to digital platforms. With the Government of India seeking to further control digital media by proposing new laws, an attack on press freedom seems imminent, he added.

Giving examples, Sainath said there was an attempt during the Covid period to control media after Reporters Without Borders ranked India 161st out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. A committee was formed, consisting mainly of government bureaucrats, to counter the index results. Only two journalists—including himself—were included. He said he joined on the condition that media freedom would be ensured. However, after finding his interventions too strong, the committee, which was headed by the Cabinet Secretary, eventually “disappeared”.

Now, said Sainath, there is a move to introduce a law that would impose a huge income tax on non-profit media houses. Pointing out that non-profit organisations like PARI, which he owns, and The Wire, are likely to suffer the most as a result of this move, he said the intention is to squeeze independent media outfits that have emerged over the last decade. This would take away ₹1 crore out of the approximately ₹2.5 crore that PARI raises annually to run its digital operations. He called upon the largely receptive audience—gathered at the invitation of top veteran Gujarat economist Prof. Indira Hirway—to financially support such independent media.

Later, talking informally, I asked Sainath a pointed question: would PARI, which is a digital media platform, have been possible 10 or 15 years ago, when internet penetration was low? He replied that he had started thinking of the PARI project 15 years ago. However, he admitted it was impossible for him to go into print or TV media, as it was too costly—one reason why he opted for the digital route.

I further asked him whether it was possible for ordinary journalists or people aspiring to share news to do so 15 years ago, as is now possible through blogging platforms and social media. To this, he replied that reaching out to readers is a huge issue. Algorithms control what gets propagated. If you’re willing to pay for services on platforms like X, for instance, you have a chance of reaching a wider audience—otherwise not.

Courtesy: CounterView

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