Bengaluru: Hindutva groups in Karnataka’s Vijayapura on Saturday felicitated two men allegedly involved in the murder of activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh, Scroll reported citing the News Minute.
The accused Parshuram Waghmore and another man Manohar Yadave, who allegedly plotted Lankesh’s killing, were released on Friday after spending six years in prison. Both men are natives of Vijayapura.
Their felicitation took place during celebrations for the Hindu festival Dussehra.
Lankesh, the editor of a periodical named Gauri Lankesh Patrike, was returning from work when she was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar on September 5, 2017. Lankesh was a prominent critic of Hindutva groups.
Waghmore, Yadave and six others accused in the case were released on Friday after a sessions court in Bengaluru on Wednesday granted them bail.
Of the 18 persons accused of Lankesh’s murder include Amol Kale who allegedly conceived the plot.
Of the group involved in the crime, 16 are now out on bail with one remaining at large.
Another one is serving a sentence in a murder case, according to the report.
The Karnataka High Court on September 4 granted bail to Bharat Kurane, Srikanth Pangarkar, Sujith Kumar and Sudhanwa Gondhalekar, who were accused of conspiracy.
The Supreme Court earlier dismissed two petitions that sought to revoke the bail granted to N Mohan Nayak in December, pointing out that he was cooperating with the trail court.
Alongside the murder of Lankesh, Hindutva groups were accused of killing Kannada writer and anti-superstition activist MM Kalburgi in August 2015 and rationalist and Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare at Maharashtra’s Kolhapur in the same year.
In a shocking incident in 2013, Anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered in Pune.
Sharad Kalaskar, who is doing time in jail after being convicted of Dabholkar’s murder, is charged with Lankesh’s murder alongside others.