Killers of Gauri lankesh must be brought to book. There should be no space for ambiguity
There’s no doubt that the cold-blooded killing of journalist Gauri lankesh is a blot on our collective consciousness beyond the ideology she professed or nurtured, the rivalry she may have had or people she had ruffled feathers of. But what the cacophony of political blame-game hides is the need for a swift and thorough investigation and speedy disposal of justice. This murder is not about political dispensation or gender justice for lankesh, but about the right of a free-thinking individual to exist in a democratic society and feel free and safe in doing so. Justifiably, civil society needs to be angry. It is not about a journalist’s death becoming another statistic but about bringing the killers to book in current memory rather than with retrospective or diluted effect, many years down the line. Even 48 hours later, the Congress-led Siddaramaiah Government in Karnataka hasn’t been able to override even usual systemic delays, leave aside making major breakthroughs. This despite the fact that the Chief Minister expressed his intent of taking on “organised crime”, which, he believes, led to lankesh’s killing. We are nowhere near to zeroing in on the culprits, except grainy CCTV footage showing the silhouette of a medium-built, helmet-clad assailant pumping bullets and speeding away in a getaway vehicle that seems to be a two-wheeler from the reflection on the car that lankesh had parked outside the gate of her house. The police is yet to collate all the CCTV footage along the route that lankesh took to reach her house from her workplace to establish the pre-meditated and stalking act with an intention to kill.
Preliminary investigations have not even been able to establish the first recreation of the murder scene: Was it the work of one or manyIJ The Chief Minister has set up a Special Investigation Taskforce alright but it seems to be finding its way in the woods. Perhaps, he hoped to inject a sense of urgency by allocating the case to a team other than the CID, which has already been tainted by inefficiency in the MM Kalburgi murder investigation. The case of the rationalist and former Vice Chancellor of the Hampi University, who was shot dead on August 30, 2015, at his residence in Dharwad, by assassins posing as students, is still wide open. There has been no arrest or chargesheet. Yet. In that case, there were eyewitness accounts, his wife Mrs Kalburgi’s being the key description, and some sketches to go by. Still, two years down the line, the CID is in a nebula of helplessness, unable to trace the whereabouts of the killers. The SIT, till now, has done precious little to change that image. Even lankesh’s family has sought a CBI inquiry into her death, given the tardy nature of the initial probes in a state that is gradually slipping in the law and order scales.
Many may have agreed or disagreed with lankesh’s public stands as a journalist and her activist positions. While the assumption is being made of a far-right hitback, some have also pointed out to her uneasy equation with the ultra-left, many of whose members she had antagonised. In a complicated scenario as this one, it is all the more necessary to see facts as they are rather than let coloured perceptions escalate and cloud opinions and perspectives. Nothing can be more cruel to lankesh’s memory than to have her violent end unresolved and reduced to a pending case file.