Academy chairman Resul Pookutty confirmed that the films will be screened as per schedule. “We are going ahead with all the film screenings as scheduled. We will fight this out. We want the IFFK and its spirit to be saved,” Pookutty told Onmanorama.

For the first time in the history of the prestigious film festival, the Central government had insisted on MEA sanction to screen a select bunch of films at IFFK. The pending censorship exemption for 19 films has prompted cancellations and schedule revisions, sparking protests.

On Tuesday, December 16, four films were given exemption, but clearance for 15 films was put on hold. Academy officials said the films for which clearance is being withheld include old classics, restored versions, Palestinian movies, Sri Lankan films, and previous winners at the IFFK.

In the first instance, on December 16, Marian Alexander Baby, the general secretary of the state’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) told the media that The Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry has denied the 2025 International Film Festival of Kerala permission to screen 19 films. The list includes films about Palestine. The event in Thiruvananthapuram began on December 12 and will conclude on December 19.

According to rules it is reported that, films without a censorship certificate require an exemption from I&B to be screened at film festivals. The procedure outlined is that festival organisers submit applications with a synopsis and get an exemption certificate. IFFK organisers said they submitted applications with film summaries 10 days prior to the start of the festival. Pookutty had earlier told Onmanorama that he had reached out to Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar to find a solution.

Four films given exemption after an initial ban:  Beef, Eagles of Republic, Heart of the Wolf, once upon a time in Gaza. Palestine 36, an Arabic and English language movie, was the inaugural film of the event. On December 12, at the inauguration ceremony, Kerala’s Cultural Affairs Minister Saji Cherian had spoken about the state’s support for the Palestinian cause. Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdallah M Abu Shawesh was a guest at the event.

At the inauguration of the festival on December 12, while paying tribute to director Shaji N Karun, who was associated with the festival until his death in April 2025, Cherian also said that the festival was a platform that “resists fascism and autocracy while celebrating freedom of speech and creative expression”. Reported Scroll.in.

Films to be screened without censorship exemption

1. A Poet: Unconcealed Poetry
2. All That’s Left of You
3. Bamako
4. Battleship Potemkin
5. Clash
6. Palestine 36
7. Red Rain
8. Riverstone
9. The Hour of The Furnaces
10. Tunnels: Sun In the Dark (Địa Đạo: Mặt Trời Trong Bóng Tối)
11. Yes
12. Flames
13. Timbuktu
14. Wajib
15. Santosh

Background

Among the other films that were denied permission are A Poet: Unconcealed Poetry, Bamako, director Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 classic Battleship Potemkin, Spanish film Beef, Clash, Eagles of The Republic, Heart of The Wolf, Red Rain, Riverstone, The Hour of The Furnaces, Tunnels: Sun In The Dark (Địa Đạo: Mặt Trời Trong Bóng Tối), Flames, Timbuktu, Wajib and Santosh.

Battleship Potemkin and director Abderrahmane Sissako’s 2006 docudrama Bamako have been widely shown at film festivals in India. Sissako was honoured by the IFFK with a Lifetime Achievement Award this year. MA Baby, General Secretary of the ruling CPI-M said that the film Beef had been denied permission “ostensibly because of its name, even though it has nothing to do with food choices”. The former minister said that the permissions being denied to screen the films was an “absurd and lunatic attempt to derail IFFK” and the “latest example of the neo-fascist tendencies of the extreme authoritarian rule” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat.The RSS is the parent organisation of the BJP. “Artists, filmmakers and all democratic-minded citizens must raise their voices against this disgraceful move,” he said.

The Democratic Youth Federation of India, the youth organisation affiliated to the CPI(M), held a protest at one of the main venues of the film festival.

Meanwhile Veteran filmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke awardee, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, commenting on the attempted censorship of 19 films at the IFFK, including Battleship Potemkin, Beef and some Palestinian film was scathing in his comment, “This shows the ignorance of those making these decisions. Battleship Potemkin is an important study on the grammar of cinema.

VIDEO | Kerala: Veteran filmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke awardee Adoor Gopalakrishnan, commenting on the hold on the screening of 19 films at IFFK, including Battleship Potemkin, Beef, and some Palestinian films, says, “It shows the ignorance of those making these decisions.… pic.twitter.com/TOCQCiElS9

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 15, 2025

Kerala Minister for Cultural Affairs Saji Cherian has directed State Chalachitra Academy to screen all the films at IFFK @iffklive, including the remaining 15 films for which the Union I&B ministry has not yet provided censor exemption.

Kerala Minister for Cultural Affairs Saji Cherian has directed State Chalachitra Academy to screen all the films at IFFK @iffklive , including the remaining 15 films for which the Union I&B ministry has not yet provided censor exemption.

— S.R.Praveen (@myopiclenses) December 16, 2025

Kerala refuses to bow down before the whimsical rulings of Central Board of FilmCertification that denied exemption for 19 films including classic film of Battleship Potemkin in a bid to disrupt the film festival. CM declares that all the19 films will be screened at IFFK .#IFFK

— Thomas Isaac (@drthomasisaac) December 16, 2025

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The post Kerala’s LDF govt to defy Centre’s diktat, to screen all films as per schedule at IFFK appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Supreme Court also directed a special court to conduct trial on a day-to-day basis to record the statements of the nine remaining witnesses. Langa has been ordered to extend full cooperation with the proceedings and seek no adjournment on the ground that his petition seeking the case be quashed is pending. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been directed to file a status report on compliance with these directions. The matter has been listed for further consideration on January 6.

Langa had been arrested by the Gujarat Police last year in a case involving allegations of Goods and Services Tax (GST) fraud and was subsequently booked in multiple cases. The ED later registered a case against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It was senior advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for Langa. Opposing the plea, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta alleged that Langa had extorted money, claiming that threats were made to publish adverse material if payments were not made. “A journalist is found to be extorting money… We want to file an additional counter,” Mehta told the court.

Sibal objected to the move, stating that the ED was seeking to change its stand. He argued that allegations of “Rs 68-crore fraud” were exaggerated, asserting that “it is not even Rs 68 lakh.” Sibal further pointed out that no charge sheet had been filed in the predicate offence forming the basis of the PMLA case. “I have been in custody since October 2024. For what offence? It is not murder,” he submitted, calling allegations of influencing witnesses “shocking”.

Sibal also alleged that crucial documents had not been furnished to the defence, stating that there was no supplementary complaint and that the prosecution could not “have it both ways”. Finally after heated exchanges in court and taking note of the fact that only nine witnesses remain to be examined, the court granted interim bail. During a brief exchange after the order, Mehta reiterated the allegation of extortion, to which Sibal responded by suggesting that industrialists were targeting journalists. Mehta denied any political motive, stating that the prosecution was acting purely in a professional capacity. When the exchange escalated, the CJI intervened, stressing that the trial must not be delayed and cautioning Langa against misusing his position as a journalist. Sibal responded that any such violation would be grounds for cancellation of bail.

The Gujarat high court had denied bail to Langa following which he had approached the Supreme Court.

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NBDSA’s review of the broadcast revealed that the anchor relied on stereotypes about Bengali-speaking Muslims—particularly the Miya community—misrepresented demographic and political data, and even connected the protest song to an entirely unrelated rape case with no causal link. The Authority noted that this narrative expansion could not be justified as news reporting; rather, it demonstrated that the anchor “had a particular agenda in mind.” By weaving isolated incidents into a communal narrative and introducing ideas like a “Jihadi syndicate” or a conspiracy to undermine Hindu traditions, the programme violated the NBDSA’s Code of Ethics and Specific Guidelines for Anchors, which bar generalisation, sensationalism, and the vilification of any community.

In its direction, the Authority has ordered Times Now Navbharat to remove all “offending portions” from the programme and submit a modified version within seven days. It also instructed that the order be circulated to all member broadcasters and uploaded on the NBDA website and in the next Annual Report. For CJP, the decision marks a significant regulatory affirmation of its consistent efforts to challenge communalised media narratives. For the wider media landscape, the order serves as a critical reminder that the authority to question and critique cannot be exercised through distortion, stereotype, or the manufacturing of communal fear.

The Complaint: CJP flags communal narrative, distortion, and fear-mongering

CJP’s complaint dated September 9, 2024 focused on a Times Now Navbharat programme titled: “Desh Ka Mood Meter: सनातन संस्कृति…कट्टरपंथियों के लिए सॉफ्ट टारगेट? | CM Himanta Biswa Sarma News” that aired on 2 September 2024. The show revolved around the arrest of Altaf Hussain, a Bengali-speaking Muslim singer from Assam, who had released a protest song highlighting discrimination against the Miya community. Following his arrest, the Chief Minister og Assam made a Facebook Live appearance calling the song “an attack” and alleging an attempt to “change Bihu into Miya Bihu”.

The Times Now Navbharat broadcast then used these remarks to spin a sweeping communal narrative.

CJP pointed out that the anchor:

• Presented the incident as part of a nationwide conspiracy against Hindu culture—linking Assam, Kerala, and Kashmir in a manufactured war-like narrative.
• Used dangerous phrases such as “Jihadi syndicate”, communal conspiracy, and “invasion”.
• Equated the term ‘Miya’ with illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, misrepresenting an entire community.
• Suggested that Muslims controlled 30 Vidhan Sabha seats and posed a demographic threat.
• Linked an isolated rape case to an entire community to insinuate collective criminality.
• Wove these disparate incidents into an overarching narrative that Hindus were under “attack”.

CJP also highlighted how the broadcast manipulated imagery, language, and tone to sharply polarise viewers and turn a cultural controversy into a nationwide Hindu-Muslim conflict.

The complete report may be read here.

Broadcaster’s Defence: ‘We only reported facts’

Times Now Navbharat denied all allegations:

• It claimed the show was only reporting the arrest and the Chief Minister’s views.
• It argued that it had differentiated between “Miya” Muslims and indigenous Assamese Muslims.
• It insisted that the depiction of demographics and electoral influence was factual.
• It refuted claims of fear-mongering, stating that the anchor was merely posing uncomfortable questions in the national interest.
• It accused the complainant of “selectively quoting snippets”.

Hearing Before NBDSA: CJP demonstrates how the anchor crafted a false national conspiracy

At the hearing held on February 22, 2025, CJP meticulously demonstrated that:

• The anchor’s opening monologue itself framed the entire show as an attack on Hindu festivals “from Assam to Kerala”.
• This was not reportage but a deliberate, pre-set narrative.
• The anchor bundled unrelated issues—the singer’s arrest, a rape case, Onam interpretations, and alleged temple name changes—to craft a false story of Hindus under siege.
• The rhetoric used was not factual journalism but fear-inducing, divisive, and ethically unsound.

NBDSA’s Findings: “Anchor had an agenda in mind”

• Reporting the arrest itself was legitimate—but the anchor went far beyond facts

The Authority noted that reporting the arrest and discussing the Chief Minister’s criticism of the song was well within the channel’s rights. But the problem was everything that followed.

• “The narrative built by the anchor went much beyond that”

NBDSA found that:

• The anchor introduced communal stereotypes, generalisations, and insinuations against a specific community.
• He linked the singer’s song to an unrelated rape case, despite “no causal connection”.
• He used the incident as an opportunity to push an agenda-driven narrative.

• “The anchor had a particular agenda in mind”

This is one of the strongest observations NBDSA has made in recent orders. The Authority stated that the anchor appeared to seize the incident as a chance to craft a pre-decided, communal storyline.

“In the process, the anchor brings a stereotype in respect of a particular community which could clearly have been avoided. The anchor also connects the song with an incident of rape, though there was no causal connection and the two things arc altogether separate and distinct. It seems the anchor had a particular agenda in mind and got this opportunity to build his narrative, bearing in mind the said agenda. It is this generalisation which falls foul of the BDSA’s Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards as well as the Specific Guidelines for Anchors conducting Programmes including Debates.”

• This violates the Code of Ethics and the Specific Guidelines for Anchors

NBDSA held that the broadcast breached:

• requirements of impartiality,
• fairness,
• neutrality,
• and the mandates for non-sensational, non-communal reporting.

The Direction: Remove offending content, re-publish edited version

NBDSA issued a clear directive:

• Times Now Navbharat must modulate the programme by removing all offending portions.
• The broadcaster must submit the edited link to NBDSA within 7 days.
• The order will be circulated internally to all NBDA member channels, editors, and legal heads.
• It will be hosted publicly on NBDA’s website and included in the Authority’s Annual Report.

Why this order matters

For CJP: It validates months of rigorous, evidence-driven media accountability work and strengthens future interventions against hate speech and communal propaganda.

For media regulation: The order sets a clear precedent that anchors cannot camouflage communal narratives under the guise of “uncomfortable questions”.

For newsroom ethics: The order draws a sharp line between reporting and communal agenda-setting, holding anchors accountable—not just for factual accuracy but for narrative construction.

For public discourse: It recognises how dangerous and corrosive it is when mainstream news links isolated crimes to entire communities or constructs conspiracies around minorities.

The complete order may be read here.

Image Courtesy: Youtube.com

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This CCG visit came in the wake of the Union Territory legislative assembly elections and Operation Sindoor which followed a terrorist attack at Pahalgam, and the havoc caused by the heavy rains, floods, landslides in Jammu division but also in Kashmir. These major significant incidents that followed one after the other have taken a huge psychological and economic toll on people and communities in both regions of Jammu-Kashmir. The visit also came at a time when the statehood promised by the Centre at an “appropriate time” still seemed a distant dream despite an elected government, albeit a non-Bhartiya Janata Party led one, in place and dyarchy continued to prevail in Jammu and Kashmir — the chief minister still did not enjoy full powers and the Lieutenant Governor controlled much of the administrative and law and order structure.

During its most recent visit, the CCG members met leaders of political parties (including former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, current Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary of the National Conference, Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami of the Communist Party of India (Marxist),Tariq Hamid Karra President of the J&K State Pradesh Congress Committee, G. A. Mir, Secretary General and Nizam Uddin Bhat, Congress MLA and chief whip from Bandipora, Kashmir’s foremost religious cleric and political leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Kashmiri Pandit leader Sanjay Ticku, civil society leaders, representatives of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, student activists from the J&K Students’ Association and journalists.

In sum, the CCG after its end October 2025 visit found that the situation on the ground, especially in the Kashmir Valley is much farther from the truth than the one presented by the Government of India or its media in Delhi.

Sullen Silence, Building anti-India sentiment

From the Jammu-Kashmir Report of the CCG:

The overwhelming sense in Srinagar was that of sullen silence. During the meetings with all those that the CCG met from civil society, they realised that the alienation had deepened, resentment and anger against the Central Government had increased but it was also partly directed now against the popularly elected Omar Abdullah government.

Different sections of Kashmiri society seemed angry over different issues. The student community was upset over the new reservation policy (which the present government had inherited) as that had reduced the general category reservation in higher educational institutions. People were also upset over the issues of the introduction of electricity metres and the non-restoration of Statehood.

When members of the CCG asked whether installing electricity metres was not a good measure, a senior Kashmiri retorted, “Sure but at least give us electricity. We are paying high electricity bills without uninterrupted electricity supply. These meters were supposed to prevent interruptions. Why are we paying such high bills when we produce hydro power here and yet have long hours of power cuts.”

This anger against the Abdullah government at times, stated the CCG report, seemed misplaced. In the last six months the local government has faced the war that caused casualties in the border areas and destruction of nearly 850 houses in Poonch district alone. Then there were unprecedented natural calamities. The Chief Minister was seen in the media visiting every disaster hit area within hours, inspecting the damage caused, giving instructions to the local civil authorities for steps to be taken to rescue victims to safer places, and providing shelter and compensation and meeting victims.

This year’s natural calamity, a result of climate change and possibly a recurring feature in the near future, is much discussed in both the regions of the UT. The road widening projects, reckless cutting down of trees and blasting of mountainsides was blamed for the landslides, mudslides and roads being washed away in Jammu region. There are, however, no signs yet of this emerging public concern converting itself into sustained civil society movement pushing for government action for mitigation of climate change impact.

Crucially, there is a pervading fear of voicing any dissenting views or opinions by civil society members. Repression by the police on this front is real that does not spare public intellectuals, media persons and others.

Meanwhile, anti-India sentiment is spreading widely. Public sentiment that had largely turned away from Pakistan has shifted since Operation Sindoor, we were told. While militancy remains at a slow burn, a churning among youth seems to be motivating them to enter spaces of greater radicalisation, possibly supported by forces across the Line of Control.

“We have been silenced”, said a prominent doctor of Srinagar speaking to members of the CCG, “But the eerie silence does not mean all is hunky-dory.” The volcano of suppressed anger and frustration bordering on hatred could erupt any time, he felt as “all it needs is a trigger.”

A retired professor claimed that there was “no protection for Kashmiri identity today” and on top that there was a sense of economic disempowerment. Another prominent civil society member claimed, “We Kashmiris are rebuked and abused at every occasion. The national media plays dirty and projects all Kashmiris as villains.” He also objected to the concert of Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam, which was only attended “by security personnel and their families” as ordinary Kashmiris boycotted it. “He reportedly has problems with the call for prayer, Azaan. He was sponsored by a corporate TV channel close to the government and people saw it as cultural invasion. We have our own cultural traditions. We don’t need people like him.”

The dominant civil society view –states the CCG report–was that India was moving towards majoritarian rule under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “We oppose the BJP because of what it is doing to the Constitution of India. We are dedicated to the Constitution because it gives us our rights as citizens of India. Our loyalty is to the Constitution and not to any political party,” a prominent civil society leader said.

Another public intellectual, a prominent academic, recalled that “Sheikh Abdullah agreed to join Nehru’s India but wondered quite often what might happen if Hindu majoritarianism came to power in India” suggesting that that scenario had come true. This was not the India, Sheikh Abdullah and the Kashmiris had joined, “As a Muslim in India today I am denigrated by those with a Hindu majoritarian mindset,” he claimed.

He went on to say, “nobody here talks of India’s need to engage with Pakistan. That is for the Indian state to figure out. Nor are we in a position to say what kind of dialogue should be held with those Kashmiris who are in jail. But we had an identity as Kashmiris. That was a protection against Pakistan’s designs on Kashmir. And now even that has been taken away.”

People were apprehensive about the constant anti-Pakistan statements by the senior ministers of the Modi Government and repeated visits of senior Army officers to the border areas.

Others told us that the lack of jobs, uncertainty about the future, general societal anger and alienation were producing two types of negative reactions in some of the youth: they are either turning to drugs or, increasingly, towards radicalisation. Both these trends worry the Kashmiris who feel that they are destructive for the Kashmiri society. However, they also feel helpless over how to address these negative trends.

A senior editor said, “This silence of the Kashmiri society is unsustainable. It has to explode and we cannot say anything about its timing. But when it does, it would be dangerous.”

A political leader sensing the mood at Ground Zero warned the CCG team, “Kuch bada hone wala hai (something ‘big’ is going to happen)”. One had heard the same apprehension in August. Was it a foreboding of the horrific terrorist attack of November 10 that took place after our Group returned and smothered 11 innocent lives? One does not know.

1. Overall political situation

From the CCG Report: A year after the National Conference led alliance won AN overwhelming majority in the 2024 Assembly elections and Omar Abdullah Government was sworn in, the government is struggling. The public is unhappy that the promises made to the electorate are not being fulfilled fast enough.

However, Omar Abdullah also presides over a powerless government. He is not able to take any major decisions, as most of the decision-making powers are with the Lieutenant Governor, including appointments of civil servants and police officers. All this is only adding to the people’s frustrations. People are resentful that hardly any Kashmiri Officers are posted as administrative heads at the districts and are effectively sidelined. The officers from outside the UT, they claim, neither understand the language nor the local situation, resulting in a gap in public connect.

The internal strain within the National Conference and disagreement between the Chief Minister and the party’s very popular Lok Sabha member from Budgam are played out publicly. This is having its negative fallout as both sides have hardened their respective stands over issues which has now turned into personal battle. As a result of this, there was public perception that National Conference would lose the by-election in Budgam constituency, which was vacated by Omar Abdullah. (The NC lost the election and PDP won it, giving the latter much needed boost).

There is speculation in a section of the public that the National Conference’s Budgam MP is being instigated to weaken the National Conference and eventually destabilize Omar Abdullah government. However, there seems TO BE no evidence to support such a claim.

The Rajya Sabha elections for the four J&K seats that took place just before CCG’s visit, showed how skilfully the BJP managed to get the four extra votes, above its number of MLAs, in the Legislative Assembly. These elections have also widened the fissures between the governing alliance partners – the National Conference and the Congress. Each side holds the other responsible for this.

Former CM, Mehbooba Mufti is slowly growing in strength politically. She is raising issues that are of people’s concerns, holding demonstrations on different issues that are agitating the public. Recently she had filed a PIL in J&K High Court regarding those held for several years without trial in jails in different parts of the country, demanding that they be shifted to local jails as most families were unable to visit them due to lack of financial resources. She was herself present in the court for the hearing. This has struck a positive chord with the public as this has been a major issue of concern among the Kashmiris since 2019.

This issue of young people in prisons as well AS political leaders who are imprisoned since 2019, was also raised by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq during his meeting with our group. He told us that many parents come to him pleading that something be done to have their sons released from jails.

The Mirwaiz also told us about the kind of intimidation and surveillance he faces. Sometimes the senior cleric is allowed to give Friday sermons and then suddenly prevented from going to Jama Masjid for weeks without any reason. He is asked to show written text of his Friday sermons the night before for scrutiny. He is also asked to show his appointments for conducting marriages and even the Nikah Namas to the police.

The government, however, did allow him to go to Delhi to depose before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Bill. During the visit he met people in Delhi and had hoped that some political process would be initiated. He is a strong advocate of dialogue between Delhi and Srinagar and also feels that the tensions between India-Pakistan can be addressed through dialogue as lack of diplomatic relations was having a negative impact on the ground. He told us he was willing to play his part in this process, as he had done earlier.

One of the promises that were fulfilled by the Abdullah government was the Darbar Move for six months to Jammu. On November 1, government offices shifted to Jammu. This was in response to the demands of the Jammu public to bring the government closer to them, as well as bring the Kashmiris and Jammuites closer and allow greater economic interaction between the small traders and businessmen of the two regions. However, this alone was unlikely to overcome the sentiments of the Hindus of Jammu. Since the Assembly elections polarization has increased in Jammu plains against Muslims of Kashmir Valley. There are isolated incidents of social boycott of Muslims in the outskirts of Jammu city and in rural pockets. For the first time Jammu city saw war come close to them during Op Sindoor. Many Hindus migrated from Jammu city during the short war to neighbouring Himachal or Delhi. Some have even bought properties there. One public intellectual said, “We in Jammu also feel like an occupied colony. We are nowhere in the scheme of things. Only Kashmir is talked about”. Anger and alienation against New Delhi seem to be building up AMONGST Jammu’s Hindus too.

2. Statehood denial and its implications

From the CCG Report: Resentment on the non- restoration of statehood continues to be massive and overwhelming. Our Group witnessed at first hand the anger, frustration and disillusionment on this issue during our interactions with members of civil society, trade and industry representatives, businessmen, educationists, media-persons and Kashmiri Pandit leaders among others. While statehood is a significant and serious issue in the Valley, our Group learned that the Jammu region also continues to nurse anger over the loss of statehood and many related issues impacting them post-2019.

A senior political leader indicated the “root-cause” of the statehood denial to J&K saying, “Elections happened but the results were not to the expectations of the BJP government at the Centre. They could not get a BJP-led or a BJP-dependent government in Srinagar. It has been a year since the popular protest mandate given to Omar Abdullah. But the Centre has not been able to digest it.”

At the CCG meeting with Farooq Abdullah, President of the ruling National Conference (NC), Chief Minister (CM) Omar Abdullah, Deputy CM Surinder Choudhary, Lok Sabha MP Gurvinder Singh ‘Shammi’ Oberoi and Political Advisor to CM Nasir Wani were present among others. The double whammy of denial of statehood and existential diarchy and its consequential impact came out in bold relief during the discussions.

Terming himself as “half a CM”, despite having an overwhelming public mandate (41 out of 47 seats in the Valley and absolute majority in the J&K UT Assembly), Omar Abdullah lamented that in the prevalent diarchy–a sharp democratic regress–the Lt Governor exercises meaningful and effective power while he and his elected government are helpless in meeting peoples’ needs, address their grievances and strive to fulfil their aspirations. The existential structure of governance, it is useful to recall, resembles the colonial-type diarchy of 1919-1920 under which the British denied political power to elected governments of states in India by implementing strict repressive measures.

A young professional speaking to the CCG, averred: Kashmir is a colony of the Viceroy; the elected government is seen as completely toothless. It is the civil bureaucracy that exercises vast untrammelled power on behalf of the LG. In such a scenario people gravitate towards civil servants for their needs and grievances in effect bypassing the Cabinet Ministers they elected.

In its first sitting in October 2024, the newly elected Assembly had passed a resolution for speedy restoration of statehood. But even after over a year there has been no progress. A degree of political engagement by the Centre of people across multi-dimensional vectors would have calmed matters somewhat. The need for restoration of statehood on an urgent basis was also conveyed to us during our meetings with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Hurriyat leader and Kashmir Valley’s Chief Cleric, Tariq Hameed Karra, President J&K Congress and its Secretary General GA Mir and Chief Whip Nizamuddin Bhat, NC’s Lok Sabha MP Syed Ruhullah, CPI (M) leader MY Tarigami and others. It hardly merits emphasis that non-restoration of statehood means the Human Rights Commission, Consumer Commission and appellate authorities—that routinely operate in a state—cannot function in a UT, leading to denial of redressal mechanisms to people in J&K who are already indignant and feel disempowered and alienated.

During the several conversations that visiting members of the CCG had with cross sections of society, A deep sense of loss felt by people of Kashmir—of identity, sub-identity, dignity and honour—found repeated mention. Exasperation and estrangement emanating from the humiliating nullification of Article 370, Article 35A and bifurcation of J&K into two UTs still persist. These hurt sentiments, sections of political leadership and civil society told our group, have compounded distrust towards the Centre with the non-restoration of statehood fanning the bitterness and feeling of political neglect even more. Omar Abdullah was forthright and categorical: no political entity, not least leaders of non-BJP parties in the rest of India have any sympathy and concern for the people of J&K. As to the ruling dispensation—aside from not fulfilling the promise of restoration of statehood made repeatedly by the Prime Minister and the Home Minister over the last seven years—when did it last convene an All-Party meeting on the situation in J&K?

During discussions, a view was expressed that the J&K Reorganisation Act (2019) provided the BJP ideology an opportunity to leverage the UT status of J&K not only to impose repressive policies but also initiate attempts to cobble together a BJP-led government. In such a situation, restoration of statehood would have found greater traction at the Centre. But with the Assembly elections putting paid to such a prospect, chances of early restoration are remote. A leading politician also ascribed the delay to the huge disconnect between Kashmir and its understanding in the rest of India.

It would be useful to recall that in the Supreme Court’s verdict on Article 370 petitions, the Bench said it would not adjudicate on the issue (of demoting and bifurcating an existing state into two UTs) because the Solicitor General had assured it that statehood would be restored. Significantly, in a separate note attached to the SC’s 370 judgement, Justice Sanjiv Khanna (who later became the Chief Justice of India) had stated that the demotion of a state to two UTs was “unconstitutional and should be summarily reversed.” It is this assertion that has sought to reinforce the views of the many we met that the reversal must happen without further delay.

When some petitioners that included Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd) a member of our Group moved the Supreme Court again for fulfilment of the promise of restoration of statehood to J&K, the Court made oral observations that what happened in Pahalgam (April 22, 2025 terror attack) cannot be ignored. The alleged Red Fort terrorist attack of November10 (after our Group returned from Kashmir) may serve to further dissuade the Supreme Court. But it must render justice on the issue strictly on legal merits and not allow Pahalgam and now Red Fort terror attacks overshadow the urgent need for restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

3. Reservations time-bomb

From the CCG Report: The youngsters of Kashmir are upset with the reservations policy in the UT and they are demanding ‘rationalisation’ of the policy – reservation according to a community’s share in the population. What seems to have upset them most is that the additional 10% reservation given to the Pahari community by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre which cuts into the share of the general category.

Overall reservations in J&K have, therefore, gone up to nearly 60%, the highest in the country when the broad Constitutional limit is 50%.

The formal reservation structure in J&K is as follows: Open Merit 50%; Scheduled castes 8%; Scheduled Tribes 20% (used to be 10% but Paharis have been given 10% ST reservation as well); Socially and economically backward classes 22% (residents of backward areas 10%; residents of areas adjoining Line of Actual Control/international border 4%, other OBCs 8%); horizontal reservations 6% (Children of defence personnel 3%, children of paramilitary and police personnel 1%, candidates possessing outstanding proficiency in sports 2% 0; and economically weaker sections (EWS) 10%.

However, since the horizontal reservations (defence, police, paramilitary and sports quota) and the EWS quota are from the Open Merit category, the effective reservation in that Open Merit category goes down.

The J&K Students’ Association which has been spearheading the demand that reservations be rationalised argues, “Reservations should be based on population ratios. According to the 2011 census, 69% of the Jammu and Kashmir population falls under the general category, yet the opportunities for open merit have been shrinking.” Therefore nearly 70% of the population competes for less than 40% of the job opportunities because of the expanded reservation quotas.

The immediate provocation for the students’ demand for rationalisation of reservations is the 10% ST reservation given to the Pahari speaking people of Jammu. While they clarify that they have got nothing against the Pahari community, they are against ST status being given for the first time in India on linguistic basis to Pahari speakers. “It was an appeasement measure. The BJP hoped that the Pahari community would vote for it if it were given ST reservation but that did not happen in the assembly election,” a student leader said.

The student leaders said that the ST reservation was given to the Pahari community by an Act of Parliament. “However, we are making a demand on the state government to rationalise the reservation issues which are in their domain. For example, looking at the definition of creamy layer, regional distribution of reservations, making EWS reservations J&K specific, and re-examining whether Reservation for Backward Areas makes any sense or needs to be scrapped when all the areas of J&K are well connected through road and other infrastructure.”

CCG Report:

The students feel that an overwhelming majority of the reservations have gone to Jammu and “Kashmir is proportionately discriminated against.”  According to figures provided by the state’s minister for revenue in the UT assembly on October 27, in the last two years, of the reservation certificates issued Jammu residents received 99% of the SC, 87% of the ST, 57% of OBC, 88% of EWS, 32% of Resident of Backward Area (RBA), 85% of resident of Actual Line of Control and 100% of “other” category certificates.

Except in the case of RBA category, Jammu seems to have been the overwhelming beneficiary of reservation certificates issued in the last two years, underlining the deep regional imbalance that is emerging. This data is bound to reignite the debate on the new reservation policy and further fuel the anger of the students. The issue is already being agitated in the J&K High Court and the students have as yet put forward their demands peacefully without taking to the streets.

The J&K government did set up a three-member House Committee to look into the reservations issue and its report, accepted by the government, is now laying with the Lt. Governor’s office. The students are not happy with the Committee which apparently did not organise stakeholder consultations before finalising its report and has only members from the ST community. “So, how can we expect any justice from it?” asked a student leader. However, the details of the report are not as yet in the public domain and therefore its recommendations are purely in the domain of speculation as of now.

The students, meanwhile, demand that, among other things, the government rationalise EWS eligibility to reflect ground realities and make it less urban-centric, re-classify backward area designation, periodic review of the reservations policy every five years, eliminate ‘politically motivated’ and arbitrary inclusion in reservation lists, create a unified Backward Classes Commission for J&K, and protect the rights of the Open Merit (general) category.

However, Kashmiri students are not the only ones agitated about the reservations issue.

The 1947-48 Hindu refugees of Poonch districts now settled in Jammu are not included in the Pahari reservation although they are Pahari and Pahari-speaking. This group has a grievance that they have been arbitrarily excluded. Similarly, the Pahari-speakers of Ramban district have been excluded while reservation applies to the adjoining Poonch and Rajouri districts.

N.B.: The Gujjars who were angry and protested when Pahari reservation was announced have now calmed down as their 10% reservation is intact and not affected by the new reserved category. However, there is anger among them as the Indian Administrative Service and Kashmir Administrative Service Gujjar officers have allegedly been sidelined completely and are not in positions of decision making, not dissimilar to many Kashmiri officers. A Gujjar public intellectual said that one would not find any Gujjar even as SHO in the 10 districts of Jammu division. According to him, this is not just creating disquiet but also building up anger in the community. Gujjars point out that as Indian nationalists they have played a significant role in defending border areas. But are now sidelined. They feel alienated and this will have an impact on the security situation.

4. Media continues to be under threat

From the CCG Report: Contrary to expectations, despite the UT assembly elections of 2024, there has been no meaningful restoration of media autonomy. Ongoing censorship, surveillance and intimidation of media practitioners continues, restricting media freedom severely.

Although internet shutdown is now infrequent, harassment of journalists, revocation of press credentials and pressure to publish administration friendly narratives continue. Operation Sindoor placed severe restrictions on media reportage and most Kashmiri journalists were not able to report about the developments on the ground. Some were summoned by the police about their attempts to report. Reports that had been filed were pulled down under pressure because it went against the government’s narrative. Things, however, seem to have eased a bit in the last three months, journalists claim.

The head of Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) has been given additional charge in the Raj Bhavan (Lt. Governor’s residence) and he sits there. This, journalists claim, shifts the media control to the Lt. Governor’s office, which already has a media adviser, who has gained notoriety for capricious decisions about giving out government ads to selected news platforms and denying it to others. Media accreditation has been denied to prominent national publications like the Times of India, Economic Times, NDTV and The Hindu. The media accreditation of the Economic Times was inexplicably revoked.

Journalists are denied press passes even for covering the legislative assembly proceedings on the whims of the powers that be. Journalists in Kashmir complain that by not allowing them to cover public events organised by the government is akin to deliberately sabotaging their careers.

Meanwhile, the J&K administration has introduced a new verification process to identify “real” journalists by asking for submission of salary slips as well as detailed background information from those who want to be included in the list of “bona fide” media professionals.

In a directive issued on October 31, the District Information Officers have been instructed to collect the background information of the media personnel operating in their jurisdiction, request them to submit salary slips for the last six months and maintain a regularly updated “verified list” of accredited and bona fide media persons.

The justification for such a directive is the “repeated complaints” received about the misuse of media credentials, curbing impersonation, blackmail and extortion and circulation of defamatory content. Officials argue that the move was necessitated by the rise of social media platforms and locally trusted digital outlets. These, they claim have, blurred the lines between professionals and self-styled journalists.

Journalists have opposed the move calling it intrusive and a potential crackdown on press freedom.

The Lt. Governor, the journalists claim, keeps talking of tackling the over ground workers (OGWs) and the terrorist eco-system and apprehend that any one of them can be designated as part of that ecosystem and prosecuted. A journalist Irfan Mehraj has been in Rohini Jail in Delhi for over 1,00 days now they point out and each time he applies for bail, he finds the judge has changed and the hearing has to begin afresh.

5. Trade and business after Pahalgam

Tourism:

Post-Pahalgam terror, Kashmir was emptied of tourists overnight. The tragedy struck at the beginning of the promising tourist season in which thousands of Kashmiris are involved – Hoteliers and their staff members, taxi operators, houseboat owners, shopkeepers and scores of other businesses. The tourism industry was hit badly. As weeks stretched into months without any tourist traffic, thousands who depended on their livelihoods on tourism were left without work and prospects of no earnings, so necessary for the harsh winter months when tourist traffic is reduced.

During our visit several hoteliers also told us that many had to lay off some of their staff. During the Diwali vacation there was some tourist traffic which increased to about 30% but we also heard another hotelier saying the increase in tourist traffic was hardly 10-15%. Perhaps different categories of hotels were hit differently. However, the total loss to tourism industry is hard to estimate as no one has calculated the loss of revenue so far.

One of the other issues bothering the hoteliers of Kashmir (and also of Jammu), is the Union Territory’s new Land Policy. Most leases are expiring or have expired. But instead of renewing these, as happens in rest of India, the UT government as per the New Act decided to auction the land on which the hotels have been built.

Gulmarg has been a special focus for implementation of the policy. Although the land leases of hotels in Srinagar and Jammu too have expired, these are not the focus of government action. The current owners who have invested substantial amounts in constructing and running these hotels, are not given any preference in the auctions conducted. The hoteliers have been demanding that the same rules be applied to expired land leases in Delhi which is also a Union Territory, as well as the other states in the rest of India.

Horticulture:

From the CCG Report: This sector generates major revenue for Kashmir and Kashmiris. Almost every family in South Kashmir has a small or big orchard and earn something out of it. This sector of THE economy too suffered badly in 2025.

Just as the apples were being harvested, there were heavy rains in the Jammu region. This caused landslides with some stretches of Srinagar-Jammu Highway being washed away. For about 20-22 days, around 4,000 trucks laden with fruits were stranded on the highway. This transportation delay completely damaged the fruit. During that period the harvested apples remained in the orchards and could not be shipped out. Although Kashmir has now cold storage facilities for apples, it is not adequate to store all the harvested apples. Some of the fruit was also damaged when heavy rains came to Kashmir.

According to the President of the Pulwama Fruit Mandi, the orchardists have suffered losses of over Rs. 2000 crore this year. At the Pulwama fruit Mandi, every day during the harvest season, 50 trucks with an average capacity of 25-30 tons of fruits, are loaded. Each truck is worth around Rs 7 lakhs – amounting to a daily profit of Rs 3.5 crore. This activity goes on for about two and half months.

The Central Government and the J&K government did respond to the crisis by sending goods trains from Srinagar to ferry Apples to the Indian markets in Delhi and elsewhere to address the crisis but not before substantial losses had already incurred. Some smaller trucks also took the fruit via the Mughal Road to the Jammu Mandi. The Fruit growers want crop insurance for fruits as well. They also feel that the J&K Government does not give as much support as the Himachal government gives to the fruit growers there.

The launching of goods trains directly from Delhi and Punjab has, however, upset the Jammu traders and transporters, who transported goods including fruit, to the Jammu and Delhi markets. They fear that Jammu would suffer further economic loss because of this, as the entire transport sector – truck owners, loaders and others in Jammu Mandi would see job and income losses. A member of the Jammu Chamber of Commerce commented, “The government is not consulting traders here before implementing important decisions that will affect trade here.” He was very bitter about this.

Disclaimer: The CCG does not claim to do present a situation perfectly as it is virtually impossible to meet the representatives of all groups, communities, ethnicities and interests. Often the administration itself makes it impossible for the group to meet people, such as advising them not to meet us as happened this time when the CCG members wanted to visit Shopian to meet the apple traders in the local mandi (wholesale market). Earlier, the group members have been confined to their hotel premises by the police, locked up at the Srinagar airport lounge and one of its members even deported to Delhi. While with the advent of a democratically elected government the group expected that its movement would not be restricted, this time around the people we were supposed to meet were told not to meet the group.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

Related:

From Prison to Uncertainty: After Battling for Bails, Kashmiri Journalists Battle Stigma, Financial Crisis and Isolation

Syncretic Dreams, Shattered Realities: Kashmir in “The Hybrid Wanderers”

The post Pervasive fear, surveillance of media, spiral of anti-India sentiment in Kashmir: CCG appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Free Speech Collective

With Bihar in the midst of Vidhan Sabha elections, 2025, this media tracker exposes the illusion of free speech and independent journalism in the state. The last five years have been marked with assaults on journalists, with six killings and eleven instances of attacks. The general climate for free speech has also been affected by detention and arrest of journalists and threats to editors of prominent dailies, coupled with defamation and censorship of social media posts.

(Visit the Free Speech Tracker or scroll to the end for more details.)

By 2015, when Nitish Kumar was re-elected as Chief Minister, several independent journalists began using social media platforms to publish stories, and alongside began facing reprisal. By 2020, when the Nitish Kumar government was re-elected as part of the JDU-led NDA along with the Bharatiya Janata Party, repression on the media continued unabated, this time targeting social media.

Bihar struggles with low socio-economic indicators. It consistently throws up high unemployment rates and there is an abject lack of facilities for health and education. In the NITI Aayog 2019-20 State Health Index, Bihar was ranked 18th out of 19 large states. In March 2025, Niti Aayog’s Macro and Fiscal Landscape of the State of Bihar said that the sex ratio is lower than the national average. Low literacy levels and low per capita income and high unemployment, forces lakhs of youth to migrate every year. With little or no industries, agriculture is a mainstay and government employment is a desperate struggle for thousands of youth. In NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index of 2023-24, Bihar was adjudged the worst performer in terms of social, economic and environmental parameters.

The large-scale deletion of voters in Bihar in the run up to the Assembly election, ostensibly to revise the electoral rolls, is bound to have an impact on the polls. But the slow erasure of an independent media that can question and hold its government accountable can only further weaken the foundations of a democracy.

Details of Free Speech Violations in Bihar, November ’20-’25:

Read FSC’s special features:

Wanted: A Responsible Media in Bihar, by Kiran Shaheen.

Criminalisation of politics in Bihar, by C P Jha.

Related:

From Welfare to Expulsion: Bihar’s MCC period rhetoric turns citizenship into a campaign weapon

Bihar Elections Build-up: ‘Won’t allow namaz’, ‘namak haram’, BJP MPs’ communal hate-filled remarks draw fire

Caste and Indifference: Two separate incidents of rape against minor Dalit girls in UP and Bihar receive no media coverage, protest or outrage

The post Bihar & the Delusion of Independent Journalism: A Free Speech Record of Five Years appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A calculated campaign of vilification: CJP

In its complaint, CJP alleges that a “coordinated campaign of caste-based vilification, violent provocation, and criminal intimidation” directed at CJI Gavai—India’s second Dalit Chief Justice. It asserts that the content uploaded by Ajeet Bharti’s channel is not merely hate speech but “digital violence designed to demean a constitutional authority through caste-based insult and explicit threats.”

“This is not just abuse,” the complaint states, “but a direct and calculated assault on the dignity and personal safety of India’s highest judicial functionary, and consequently, a grave threat to the independence of the Indian judiciary itself.”

Factual background: Documented pattern of hate

The complaint highlighted that the creator of these videos, Mr. Ajeet Bharti, is a person with known antecedents of disseminating hateful and divisive statements. His broader social media profile is already under active surveillance and investigation by Indian law enforcement for similar offenses. As per complaint, the criminal nature of the content in question is not a matter of CJP’s interpretation but is confirmed by direct police action. On October 8, 2025, police in the state of Punjab have officially booked Ajeet Bharti in over a dozen First Information Reports (FIRs). The official grounds for these criminal proceedings are his “casteist” and “provocative” remarks made on social media targeting Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai.

The majority of the accused are from outside Punjab and have been charged under non-bailable sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, along with other relevant laws.

The videos hosted on the YouTube platform are not isolated incidents but are part of a wider, documented campaign of hate by an individual whose activities are already subject to serious legal action by multiple state authorities i.e. Punjab and Noida Police. This established profile of spreading hate speech adds profound gravity to the content and heightens the urgency for its immediate removal.

Shoe hurled at CJI B.R. Gavai during live court proceedings

Tensions rose after October 6, 2025, when Advocate Rakesh Kishore hurled a shoe at the CJI during a Supreme Court hearing, shouting “Sanatan ka apman nahi sahega.” The Bar Council of India immediately suspended Kishore, calling his act “prima facie inconsistent with the dignity of the court.”

Despite the outrage, the complaint notes that Ajeet Bharti amplified the aggression. This episode came just a week after Bharti’s earlier broadcast on September 29, where his panel had already invoked open calls for violence against the Chief Justice.

Deleted Post by Ajeet Bharti

Detailed legal examination of the videos by CJP

In its complaint, CJP has very carefully examined the transcript of this podcast, premiered on September 29, 2025, and October 6, 2025 from the Ajeet Bharti’s YouTube channel [@ajeetbharti] and highlighted their relevant timestamps and context, unequivocally establishing grounds for immediate action against the channel.

The first video, “S2E2: CJI Gavai Vs Sleeping Hindus | Sonam Wangchuk A Deep State Project | Kaushlesh, Anupam, Ajeet,” was uploaded on September 29, 2025.

Barely a week later, on October 6, Bharti livestreamed “Shoe Attack on CJI Gavai: Leftist Baying for Ajeet Bharti Blood | Ajeet Bharti LIVE.”

The videos are called “a continuous chain of hate speech, culminating in physical aggression and social intimidation.”

Timeline of incitement:

• September 29, 2025 – Bharti’s podcast calls for explicit violence against the CJI: “One Hindu lawyer should grab Gavai ji’s head and smash it against the wall.”
• October 6, 2025 – A week later, a lawyer physically attacks the CJI in the Supreme Court, proving, the complaint says, “that YouTube’s inaction turned speech into assault.”

The complaint situates this within a historic pattern—where dehumanising propaganda precedes violence against Dalit and Adivasi communities. “This hate speech,” it warns, “is not isolated; it draws from India’s long history of caste oppression, social boycotts, and pogroms fuelled by rhetoric portraying Dalits as subhuman.”

The flashpoint of incitement

At in the first video, one of the speakers says: “If Gavai ji bumps into someone somewhere… one Hindu lawyer should grab Gavai ji’s head and smash it against the wall with such force that it breaks into two pieces.”

The complaint calls this a “direct call to commit assault”—not metaphor but provocation. Moments earlier, another participant had sneered: “What is the punishment in the IPC for spitting on Gavai’s face? Hindus can’t even do that.”

The complaint observes that such remarks “normalise public humiliation of a sitting Chief Justice and encourage copycat behaviour.” Later, at, a panellist declares: “The amount of inherent inferiority I have seen in Gavai… you have reached the topmost post and you still have it.”

In the complaint, this line “weaponises caste psychology to demean Dalit achievement” and qualifies as an offence under section 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

“He (CJI) drinks Neel in the morning”, derogatory remark against CJI

The October 6 livestream, the complaint argues, crossed every boundary of legality and decency. At, Bharti sneers that “The judge doesn’t understand the dignity of his post and reaches court after drinking ‘neel’ and distributing ‘Ambedkar Neel Vachanamrit’ instead of giving orders.”

Here, “neel” (blue)—the emblem of Dalit and Ambedkarite assertion—is distorted into a slur. Minutes later, Bharti escalates to grotesque caste imagery: “He dried the leather of a dead cow in the scorching sun of the slum, smeared it with sewer blackness, and while picking garbage, joined pieces of ‘L’ and ‘V’ to make Louis Vuitton shoes.”

The complaint describes these lines as “abhorrent, dehumanising, and a deliberate resurrection of the language of untouchability.” The complaint stresses that such statements insult not just Justice Gavai but the entire Dalit community, reducing symbols of dignity into “the vocabulary of filth and servitude.”

By broadcasting and monetising this content, YouTube, it argues, has “hosted, profited from, and algorithmically promoted material amounting to cognisable offences under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act.”

From digital hate to real violence

When, days later, the lawyer hurled a shoe/object at the CJI, Bharti’s livestream turned the assault into spectacle. At in second video on October 6, he remarked “If judges continue to make such anti-Hindu statements, then what happened in court today can happen on the streets tomorrow.”

CJP calls this “not commentary but endorsement”—a public justification of violence.

“The sequence of events provides a stark and undeniable correlation between specific incitement broadcast on YouTube platform and the subsequent act of violence,” the complaint stated, warning that such narratives normalise courtroom desecration and seek to punish judicial independence—particularly when embodied by a Dalit judge.

Police action, platform silence

CJP alleges that despite multiple FIRs and legal summons against Bharti, YouTube has taken no suo-moto actions.

“By continuing to host these videos,” the complaint writes, “YouTube is facilitating the spread of content from an individual under investigation for caste-based offences.”

The complaint alleges YouTube of “double standards”—acting swiftly against hate speech in Western contexts but remaining inert when the target is a Dalit Chief Justice in India. Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, intermediaries must remove unlawful content upon notice—an obligation the Complaint says YouTube has ignored.

Legal and ethical violations

The complaint cites violations under multiple Indian laws—including Sections 109, 117, 152, and 342 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and the SC/ST Act, as well as Supreme Court precedents which recognise hate speech as a precursor to violence.

Failure to act, the complaint warns, “undermines India’s constitutional promise of equality and the independence of its judiciary.”

“The continuous dissemination of derogatory and inciting content against the Chief Justice of India,” the complaint asserts, “is not merely an attack on an individual, but a direct and insidious assault on the very foundation of India’s constitutional democracy—the independent judiciary.”

Global standards, local silence

CJI reminds YouTube of its international responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the EU Digital Services Act, which demand swift removal of hate and incitement.

“YouTube cannot adhere to one set of standards in Europe and another in India,” the complaint notes. “Corporate self-regulation must not end where profit begins.”

CJP’s four-point prayer to YouTube

CJP’s complaint concludes with a clear four-point prayer to YouTube, asserting that failure to comply would be treated as complicity in the alleged offences, the complaint demands the immediate removal of both inflammatory videos and the permanent suspension of the @AjeetBharti channel to halt the dissemination of further hate; furthermore, CJP calls for an internal investigation into the platform’s moderation failures and a compliance response within 72 hours detailing the steps taken to address the grave legal and ethical violations cited in the complaint.

The complete complaint may be read here:

Related

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CJP Impact: YouTube responds to CJP’s complaint, takes down hate filled content!

CJP Impact: Twitter suspends 21 accounts threatening Muslim women with sexual violence

The post CJP flags casteist, anti-Dalit videos on YouTube targeting CJI Gavai; seeks urgent takedown appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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.