It has been two years since the 11 convicted in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case were greeted with garlands by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Gujarat after being released from jail. And very recently, in Karnataka, another Hindutva group named Sri Rama Sena felicitated the accused in the assassination of activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh.
On 11 October, the Sri Rama Sena's Vijayapura felicitated 33-year-old Parshuram Waghmore and 40-year-old Manohar Yadve, after a Bengaluru sessions court granted bail to eight accused (including these two) in her killing that occurred in September 2017.
She was a vocal critic of right-wing groups in Karnataka and across India and was gunned down by motor-borne assassins outside her house in Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bengaluru.
Waghmore has been identified as the helmet-wearing assassin, while Yadve allegedly plotted her murder. Videos of the two being garlanded by the Sena's Vijayapura unit leaders Neelakanth Kandagalla and Umesh Vandal, and the two accused later offering prayers at the Kalika temple and paying tribute to a statue of Shivaji, have gone viral.
While the glorification of the accused has evoked condemnation from activists and thinkers on social media, the ruling Congress party in Karnataka has chosen to keep mum except for stray voices like BK Hariprasad. However, the Karnataka Congress counterpart in Kerala went ballistic on X: "Saffron represents courage and sacrifice, not crime and cowardice. The right-wing is destroying Hinduism piece by piece. Gauri Lankesh's murderers, cowards who shot a lady and ran away, are garlanded with saffron clothes."
Apart from the Bilkis Bano case, earlier in 2018, two BJP ministers in the Jammu and Kashmir government attended a rally organised in support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomad Muslim girl from Kathua. The two ministers resigned later.
Kavitha Lankesh, sister of Gauri Lankesh, described the glorification of the alleged accused as "disturbing and shocking" to her family. "I was not aware that Waghmore was the person who gunned down my sister. Everyone accused in the case has got bail now, and one has no objections to being granted bail if the trial is going on. But the delay is putting the case in jeopardy,'' she added.
On Karnataka Congress' silence, Kavitha said the right-wing group did not announce the event was held for killing her, but portrayed it as if innocent Hindus were put behind bars. The Congress in Karnataka is caught between soft Hindutva and other issues, she added.
Justifying the felicitations, Neelakanth Kandagalla, the Sri Rama Sena leader in Vijayapura who organised the event said both Waghmore and Yadve are from his district and are members of the Sena. "It's difficult to believe that they would have committed this crime. They were in Vijayapura on the day of Vijaya Dashami, which marks the celebration of victory over evil, and therefore, the programme was held," he added. In July 2024, BJP MLA representing Goshamahal in Telangana, Thakur Raja Singh, felicitated the advocates who were representing Lankesh's killers at an event organised by the Hindu Janajagruti Samithi.
"In fact, Waghmore hails from a poor family and was earning his livelihood by selling utensils. The police were looking for a person who was 5.1 ft with kum kum on the forehead and picked up Waghmore, as the description did not match with those they had arrested from Maharashtra. Wagmore has not seen a gun nor can he fire one," Kandagalla claimed.
More on the Sri Rama Sena
This is not the first time the Sri Rama Sena in Karnataka has been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Founded in 2005 by Pramod Muthalik, a former member of the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena, the outfit is known for its moral policing and cow vigilantism.
In 2009, its members attacked young men and women after dragging them out of a pub and beating them up, claiming the women were violating traditional Indian values. The same year they had planned to target couples dating on 14 February (Valentine's Day) and take them to temples to forcibly conduct their marriages.
The Sri Rama Sena's involvement in Lankesh's murder is also linked to the murders of the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in August 2013, leftist thinker Govind Pansare in February 2015 in Maharashtra, and scholar MM Kalburgi in August 2015 in Karnataka.
Senior Congress leader and MLC BK Hariprasad said by hailing the alleged accused, the Sri Rama Sena was just implementing the RSS agenda.
"After Bilkis Bano, this is the second case where the murderers have been felicitated. What does it mean? Now, gangster leader Lawrence Bishnoi, who is said to be behind the killing of Maharashtra NCP leader Baba Siddique, is being appreciated in social media as the saviour of Hindus. This is ridiculous, especially in the land of Mahatma Gandhi where peace, non-violence and truth are propagated. They are going the opposite way. The idea of propagating this kind of violence and hailing such people who are murderers is similar to felicitating Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who was against the Constitution. They want to achieve a Hindu Rashtra and silence the voices who speak for a secular India."
Mohan K Kondajji, former Congress legislator and a close associate of Lankesh, described the act as "a disaster." Activist and journalist Shivasundar said the court should have put some restrictions on the accused while granting bail so that there is no legitimisation of any possible crime by them.
According to him, while the granting of bail to all the accused is justified as the Supreme Court has held that the right to bail cannot be withheld as a punishment irrespective of the nature of the crime, it was not being equally applied to all. "There are many human rights activists including the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and from the Popular Front of India who are languishing in jail. Glorification of the accused in the case will send out a message that such crimes are condoned," he added.
To expedite Lankesh's case, which has been dragging for six years, Kavitha plans to meet Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and request him to constitute a special court or a fast-track court. "We have now been assured that the court will hear the case eight days in a month, which is not enough. The investigation had started well during Siddaramaiah's first tenure as the chief minister, with 100 persons tasked to probe. If there is no follow-up now, what is the purpose of the investigation with 300 people more left to be questioned?"
(Naheed Ataulla is a senior political journalist based in Bengaluru. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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