Witness list of Gauri Lankesh murder case submitted at court

The Special Public Prosecutor in the murder case of journalist Gauri Lankesh submitted a list of witnesses at a Bengaluru City Civil and Sessions Court on Saturday. The journalist was killed on September 5, 2017.

The defendants' attorney has requested a list of electronic evidence in response. The court has adjourned the hearing to June 6 for any objections to be filed.

The trial is scheduled from July 4 to 8 and for a week every month.

Gauri Lankesh was shot to death by three unidentified men outside her house. The assassins fired seven bullets at her while she was unlocking the main door. One was waiting for her near the house and fired five times at her. The other two are suspected to have followed her from her office. The criminals were wearing helmets and left on a two-wheeler.

The murder took place at 8 pm and she died on the spot. She was 55-year-old at the time of her death. The Special Investigation Team detained two suspects in 2018. One of them, Parashuram Waghmor confessed to the crime and claimed he was told to kill someone to save his religion.

The journalist turned activist from Bengaluru was running a weekly called Lankesh Patrike, a publication started by her father. At the time of her death, she was known for critiquing right-wing Hindu extremism and campaigning for women's rights, and opposing caste-based discrimination.

In 2003, Gauri opposed the Sangh Parivar's attempts to Hinduise the Sufi shrineGuru Dattatreya Baba Budan Dargah. In 2012, she said Hinduism is not a religion but a system of hierarchy. She also stated that women are treated as second-class creatures in Hinduism. She was booked for defamation of BJP leaders in 2008 and was convicted after she failed to produce substantial evidence.