Conflict
Kalburgi ‘was targeted for anti-hindu remark on idols’, suspect tells police
Kannada research scholar, M M Kalburgi was reportedly killed for a remark he made in June 2014, when he quoted Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy to say that urinating on idols would not attract divine retribution, Indian Express reported.
Kalburgi had been killed outside his home in Dharwad, North Karnataka on August 30, 2015.
IE quoted sources stating that Ganesh Miskin, one of two suspects arrested by the Karnataka Police CID for Kalburgi’s murder, has said that the scholar’s remark made during a discussion on an anti-superstition Bill, was perceived as “anti-Hindu”, and triggered the attack on him.
Miskin and another, Amit Baddi, who are linked to a radical Hindu outfit were arrested on September 15 after the Kanrataka Police’s SIT while probing into the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh stated their possible involvement in the murder of Kalburgi.
IE stated sources saying that Miskin, in the course of his interrogation by the CID, revealed knowledge of the Kalburgi murder, but denied any involvement in the shooting.
A few suspects arrested for involvement in the Lankesh murder case had earlier indicated that the journalist was targeted for her alleged “anti-Hindu’’ statements. This included a speech she made in 2012 in Mangaluru, which was re-circulated on social media in 2016, in which she said that Hinduism has no specific parentage and is merely an arrangement of social structure.
A video of her speech was found on a computer in the possession of a suspect, Sujeet Kumar, a former activist of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, who was among those arrested for the journalist’s murder, IE reported. The video was shown to youths recruited by the outfit to execute the murder, sources quoted by IE stated.
