Bengaluru: Reformed Naxals Sirimane Nagaraj and Noor Sridhar have rubbished the theory of Naxals being behind the murder of journalist and writer Gauri Lankesh.
They have alleged that its clearly an act committed by Sangh Parivar, who hated her. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, they explained that ‘Party is secret – Politics is open’ was the policy of the Maoist Party. “There is no history of Naxals killing any journalist in India. Forget killing, there are not even supposed to assault anyone. If at all Naxals kill anyone, there is a policy that they have to make the reasons public. Or if they kill someone by mistake under various circumstances, they will apologise publicly. No such development has happened after Ms. Lankesh’s killing,” they said. They further clarified that Naxals had no reason to hate Ms. Lankesh and in fact they had respect for her and Gauri Lankesh Patrike.
“She was given the tag of ‘Naxal Suppoter’ by Sangh Parivar after she criticised the government policy after police killed several Naxals including Saketh Rajan in encounters.
“We came out of the Maoist Party in July 2006 and Ms. Lankesh was no way connected with this. Similarly seven others came to the mainstream recently. The point is, Naxals who leave arms and come to mainstream will approach people like Ms. Lankesh many months after they have cut their nexus with the party. As they will be facing cases and want to live a normal life, they will have to undergo surrender procedure. Gauri Lankesh, H. S. Doreswamy and A. K. Subbaiah, who are the members of the committee set up to rehabilitate reformed Naxals, just act at facilitators. Thus, the question of Naxals or factions of it hating Ms. Lankesh,” they said, adding that Naxals had so far not even given a statement against Ms. Lankesh or distributed handbills against her.
They condemned the attempt to put the blame on Vikram Gowda, a Naxal leader.
“Gowda is an Adivasi youth who took up arms to fight for their rights. He is wrongly projected as an anti-social element and attempts are being made to make him the scapegoat in Ms. Lankesh’s murder. We strongly condemn this.”
They said that they strongly believed that it was Sangh Parivar which killed Ms. Lankesh.
“Those who considered Gauri as their biggest enemy and had strong hatred towards her, those who are trying to mislead the investigations now by putting the blame on Naxals, those who were hating Gauri, Dr. M. M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narandra Dabholkar equally, those who are celebrating these murders, those who wanted Gauri to die, those who gave threats to her are behind the murder. Its non other than Sangh Parivar,” they alleged.
The reformed Naxals also said that if the police investigation revealed Naxal hand behind the murder, even they should be arrested on charges of misleading the investigation and conspiracy.
“The same should apply for the Union Home Minister. Also, even we are receiving threats. If at all something bad happens to us, we will not there to give our statement. So we are telling now that Sangh Parivar will be responsible for that.”
Inputs from Deccan Chronicle
