[The hit list and the accusations against members of Sanatan Sanstha have frightened intellectuals and raised concerns about freedom of expression in the world’s largest democracy at a time when violence by fringe Hindu extremist groups — many of whom helped propel India’s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to power — appears to be rising.]
By Annie Gowen
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Protesters
demonstrate against the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh in September
2017 in
New Delhi. (Ravi Choudhary/Hindustan Times/Getty Images)
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BANGALORE,
India — The killers trailed
her for months, watching her every move. When the day came, they were ready for
her.
Journalist Gauri Lankesh had locked up the
office of her scrappy weekly newspaper and had just returned home when the
killers arrived on a motorcycle.
One of them — his face obscured by a helmet —
drew close and began shooting. One, two, three shots. Lankesh tried to flee,
but the last bullet ended her life.
The journalist’s death reverberated across
India. She was given a state funeral in Bangalore, and thousands marched in
protest around the country, chanting “I am Gauri. We are all Gauri.” Many
believed Lankesh was killed because of her outspoken criticism against the
government and rising right-wing extremism.
Police investigating Lankesh’s murder now
believe that her death was part of a wider conspiracy, with evidence linking
her killing to three other meticulously planned murders of secular
intellectuals since 2013. They say that Lankesh’s killers were associated with
Sanatan Sanstha, a shadowy extremist religious sect that has been accused of
using hypnotherapy to incite its followers to kill those they consider enemies
of Hinduism. Investigators uncovered a hit list of more than two dozen other
writers and scholars.
The hit list and the accusations against
members of Sanatan Sanstha have frightened intellectuals and raised concerns
about freedom of expression in the world’s largest democracy at a time when
violence by fringe Hindu extremist groups — many of whom helped propel India’s
governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to power — appears to be
rising.
“There is no doubt about it. This is an
organized group of individuals who planned and executed all four murders, and
some of those who are arrested are followers of Sanatan Santhsa,” said B.K.
Singh, the head of special police team investigating Lankesh’s murder.
On Aug. 27, at a news conference in Mumbai,
members of the sect — clad in the color saffron, sacred to Hinduism — denied
that that the accused were part of their organization.
“They must have attended our meetings and
must have been staunch supporters of [the Hindu cause], but that does not mean
they have been a part of Sanatan Sanstha,” said Chetan Rajhans, the group's
spokesman.
But now Indians wonder who is next.
The shooting deaths of the three other
secular intellectuals in recent years bear striking similarities to Lankesh’s
killing, investigators say. In 2013, gun-toting assailants on motorcycles
killed doctor and activist Narendra Dabholkar; two years later, others shot and
killed Communist party leader Govind Pansare, who was also out for his morning
walk. The same year, writer M.M. Kalburgi was shot and killed at point-blank
range when he answered the door of his home.
Police contend that Sanatan Sanstha is the
common thread: The accused gunman in the Pansare murder was a member of Sanatan
Sanstha. Forensic tests show the gun used to kill Kalburgi was also used in
Lankesh’s murder, and an associate of Sanatan Sanstha is among those held in
judicial custody in Lankesh’s death. None of the suspects in these cases have
been convicted.
The suspects in Lankesh’s killing used code
names, but they also kept detailed diaries, which have been a boon to
investigators in the wide-ranging investigation into the alleged extremist
cell. One suspect kept a notebook that contained a map of Lankesh’s neighborhood.
Another kept a hit list.
An alleged recruiter for the group who was
also arrested told police the suspects often took months to plan an attack,
casing their targets’ homes and memorizing daily routines, his statement shows.
They recruited religious young zealots as triggermen, then sent them to arms
training on a remote farm, investigators say.
The alleged ringleader of the extremist cell,
Amol Kale, a 37-year-old machine shop owner from Pune, was arrested in May in
connection with Lankesh’s murder. Investigators say he provided arms and
training to assailants in other attacks and that he has been associated with
Sanatan Sanstha for over a decade.
Kale kept a coded diary with the names of
targets and a chilling “to do” list for future killings, including details such
as who would bail the assailants out of jail if they were caught, investigators
said. Kale’s lawyer said his client is innocent and confessed because he was
beaten in custody, a charge police deny.
Parashuram Waghmare, an unemployed
26-year-old who investigators say appeared in the closed-circuit footage of the
killing, told police he scarcely knew who Lankesh was when he shot her. “I
killed her for my religion,” he said, according Singh, the investigator in
Lankesh’s murder. Police believe Kale hired Waghmare to carry out the killing.
Allegations of violence have dogged Sanatan
Sanstha since long before the deaths of the intellectuals. Members of the group
were convicted in two small bomb blasts in 2008, and two followers accidentally
blew themselves up trying to plant a bomb at a crowded religious festival in
2009. State authorities pressed the Indian government to ban the group as early
as 2011.
Violent rhetoric can be traced back to the
group’s founder, Jayant Athavale, a London-trained doctor who became convinced
he was an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu with a mission to establish a
“Hindu nation” in India, according to his website. About 500 followers spend
their days chanting mantras, doing chores and editing the group’s newsletters
in a spiritual retreat in India's coastal haven of Goa, according to Rajhans,
the sect’s spokesman.
Athavale, now 76 and rarely seen, has
advocated violence as part of a “religious war,” according to one of his early
books, “The Duties of a Warrior.”
“It is very important that we slice/kill the
evil-minded from the society,” Athavale wrote. “Ours is a land of saints, we
would not allow anarchy to perpetuate.”
Police say Athavale once hoped to amass a
huge army for his cause but eventually the focus shifted to targeting prominent
secular scholars he believes are “durjan” — enemies of Hinduism.
Critics charge these fringe groups are
gaining strength in the current political climate in India, where Narendra
Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has been criticized for doing little to
stop religious violence.
The sect has long maintained that it is a
spiritual organization.
"Sanatan Sanstha has no connection with
these killings," Rajhans said in an emailed response to questions.
"All these allegations are baseless."
Relatives of followers who have filed a
lawsuit in Mumbai allege that Athavale used manipulative hypnosis techniques to
separate them from their families, coerce them into giving their money and
incite them to violence, court records show. They have submitted “The Duties of
a Warrior” as evidence in court.
Rajhans also refuted that allegation:
"Nobody can be hypnotized against his wish and cannot be made to commit
any evil deed. Therefore, such false things are spread only to defame Sanatan
Sanstha."
Lankesh had been an iconoclast her whole
life, rejecting the constraints of India’s traditional society even as a young
girl, her sister Kavitha, 53, a filmmaker recalled in an interview.
When her family tried to marry her off to a
doctor, she went to the beauty parlor and got her hair cut short as a boy’s,
she recalled.
“It was like a Bollywood movie,” Kavitha
Lankesh said. “The guy wanted to marry her anyway!”
She championed the rights of women, India’s
lower caste and indigenous peoples, and wrote columns taking on establishment
politicians and religious zealots — whom she dubbed “the lunatic brigade” —
without fear.
But toward the end of her life, Lankesh, 55,
was increasingly worn down by the demands of trying to keep her tiny newsweekly
afloat while fighting defamation cases and online trolling, friends said.
“People are more circumspect now about what
they write and what they say. Your words can be misinterpreted and twisted very
consciously,” said Umar Khalid, 31, a well-known student activist and friend of
Lankesh.
On Aug. 13, Khalid was walking into an anti-hate
rally steps from the country’s Parliament building in New Delhi when he was
attacked from behind by a gun-wielding assailant who tried to shoot him in the
ribs. Khalid was spared only because the gun likely jammed.
“I immediately thought of Gauri,” he said.
“In those 10 seconds, I thought — this is the end of my life.”
The attacker eventually fired one shot and
escaped into the crowd. Later, the alleged assailant, Naveen Dalal, released a
video with another man claiming responsibility for the attempted murder. The
two were subsequently arrested. They said they were going to kill Khalid as a
gift to the nation.
Read more
Azmathulla Shariff
in Bangalore, Sangeeta Gandhe in Pune and Farheen Fatima in Delhi contributed
to this report.