Gauri Lankesh murder case: Seized diary shows two hitlists, Lankesh was Number 2 on one
Bengaluru : THE NAME of Gauri Lankesh was No. 2 on one of two lists with a total of 34 names, who were marked in 2016 for murder in a diary recovered from a key suspect linked to a radical Hindutva group, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Karnataka Police has found. Lankesh was shot dead outside her house a year later, on September 5, 2017.
All the other persons based in Karnataka named in the diary, including theatre legend Girish Karnad whose name was No. 1 on the Lankesh list, have been provided state security. A majority of names from the two lists are from Karnataka and Maharashtra, sources told The Indian Express, adding that security agencies in other states have been alerted.
The diary was among documents found in the possession of Amol Kale, 37, a resident of Pune and a former convenor of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). It shows that the name of Lankesh and 33 others from all over India were drawn up allegedly by the suspect in August 2016.
Kale is suspected to be a key figure in a covert unit linked to the Sanatan Sanstha and its affiliate, the HJS. He was arrested from the Davangere region of Karnataka on May 21 and has been identified by the SIT probing the Lankesh murder as the head of operations of the group that killed her.
The probe has also found that the 55-year-old journalist activist, like the others on the list, was chosen as a target for the strong stance she took against radical Hindutva in her speeches and articles over the years.
In documents validating the seizures made following the arrest of Kale and filed in a court in Bengaluru, the SIT has stated that a sheet with eight names in English — including Nidumamidi Swamiji, a seer opposed to superstition, at No. 8 — were found in the diary in Kale’s possession.
The documents also state that a second list of 26 names was found in another page of the diary with the dateline August 22, 2016. The SIT suspects that the two lists, comprising the names of 34 persons known to be opponents of radical Hindutva, were drawn up by Kale in consultation with others. The diary was found to have been printed in July 2016.
“These lists were some kind of tentative collection of names compiled at the end of discussions by a small group of people. They seem to be random lists which would undergo changes. Though Lankesh was named at No. 2, she was targeted first,’’ police sources said.
The SIT investigation has revealed that Kale deployed 26-year-old Parashuram Waghmare from the Vijayapura region in north Karnataka, whom he recruited and trained using the radical network of Sanatan Sanstha and HJS in Karnataka and Maharashtra, to kill Lankesh.
The SIT suspects that the execution of the plot began around eight months prior to the murder with one of the suspects identifying Lankesh’s house and carrying out a preliminary recce.
The plot gathered momentum in June 2017, the SIT has indicated in court documents. “In June 2017, Amol Kale alias Bhaisaab and Dada (a missing suspect) summoned the accused Manohar Edave alias Manoj to the Sweekar Hotel in Belgaum and told him to study the movements and routine of Gauri Lankesh who had been criticizing the Hindu religion,’’ the SIT stated in a May 31 remand plea in court.
The SIT probe found that Kale and the four others arrested began plotting the murder of Kannada writer and academic Prof K S Bhagwan in Mysuru two months after the execution of the plot to kill Lankesh.
Bhagwan’s name is among those found in Kale’s diary. Among the others on the lists are Kannada writers, Yogesh Master, Chandrashekhar Patil and Banajagere Jayaprakash, and former Karnataka backward castes commission chairman C S Dwarkanath.
Several of them, including Karnad, were provided protection soon after the murder of Lankesh. Jayaprakash, Bhagwan, Patil and Yogesh are among the literary personalities, apart from Baragur Ramachandrappa, Patil Putappa, Chennaveera Kanavi and Nataraj Huliyar, who have been provided state protection. Security cover has also been provided to Narendra Nayak, the rationalist, and S M Jamdar, the former IAS officer and proponent of a separate religion status for the Lingayat community.
The diary entries of Kale and an associate Sujeet Kumar, 38, a former activist of the HJS from Karnataka, have revealed that a covert network of nearly 30 Hindutva activists was assembled in the state to carry out subversive activities.
The SIT has so far arrested nine persons allegedly involved in the murder, including alleged shooter Waghmare. On Monday, it arrested a 27-year-old man from Hubli, Ganesh Miskin, who allegedly took Waghmare to Lankesh’s residence on a motorcycle. It also arrested another Hubbali resident, 28-year-old Amit Baddi, who allegedly drove one of the two cars used to support the operation.
courtesy : indianexpress.com
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Sri Lankans vote in crucial Presidential election, Wickremesinghe seeks another term
Colombo (PTI): Millions of Sri Lankans are casting their votes on Saturday in the crucial presidential election -- the island nation's first major electoral exercise since its worst economic meltdown in 2022.
The election will be a test for incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe who has claimed credit for putting the country on the road to recovery.
Analysts said this election is the most keenly contested of all presidential elections since 1982 with 38 candidates in the fray.
Some 17 million people are eligible to vote at over 13,400 polling stations. Over 200,000 officials have been deployed to conduct the election which will be guarded by 63,000 police personnel.
Voting started at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm. Results are expected by Sunday. Buddhist Temple halls, schools and community centres have been converted into polling stations.
Officials estimated 30 per cent voter turnout by noon.
The Police Elections Bureau said that voting was proceeding peacefully, with no reports of violence so far.
"At 4 pm, we will try to start postal vote counting and at 6 pm we would like to start normal counting. All the election management systems are okay...Within two or three hours (after the counting of votes starts), we can display the results," said Colombo City Deputy Election Commissioner MKSKK Bandaramapa.
Wickremesinghe, 75, is seeking re-election for a five-year term as an independent candidate, riding on the success of his efforts to pull the country out of the economic crisis, which many experts hailed as one of the quickest recoveries in the world.
As Sri Lanka sank into economic collapse in 2022, a popular uprising led its then-president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee the country.
Wickremesinghe was appointed as president by Parliament a week after Rajapaksa was chased out of power.
"It's a turning point for Sri Lanka to get away from conventional politics which destroyed the country and the conventional economy which destroyed the country... and a new social system, and a political system," Wickremesinghe said after casting his vote in Colombo.
Under Wickremesinghe, the rupee has stabilised, inflation has slowed to near zero from over 70 per cent during the peak of the economic crisis, economic growth has turned to positive from contraction, and government revenue has jumped sharply after new taxes and an increase in value added tax (VAT).
The three-cornered electoral battle will see Wickremesinghe facing stiff competition from Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 56, of the National People's Power (NPP), and Sajith Premadasa, 57, of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and the main Opposition leader.
Though Wickremesinghe's recovery plan tied to rigid reforms linked to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout was hardly popular, it has helped Sri Lanka recover from successive quarters of negative growth.
Sri Lanka's crisis has proven an opportunity for Dissanayake, who has seen a surge of support due to his pledge to change the island's "corrupt" political culture.
This time, the minority Tamil issue is not on the agenda of any of the three main contenders in this election. Instead, the nation's battered economy and its recovery have taken centre stage with all three front runners vowing to stick with the IMF bail-out reforms.
Dissanayake and Premadasa want to tinker with the IMF programme to give more economic relief to the public.
If no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes, a second preferential vote count will be conducted.
Voters in Sri Lanka elect a single winner by ranking up to three candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives an absolute majority, they will be declared the winner. If not, a second round of counting will commence, with second and third-choice votes then taken into account.
No election in Sri Lanka has ever progressed to the second round of counting, as single candidates have always emerged as clear winners based on first-preference votes. This year could be different.
Analysts fear that many voters would not be familiar with marking the second and third choices. This could lead to a higher number of rejected votes.
