BENGALURU: Former naxal leaders at a press meet strongly condemn and denied the claims of Naxal’s role in journalist and writer Gauri Lankesh’s murder.
A website Postcard.news published news article on September 8 that falsely claimed left-wing extremist’s leader Vikram Gowda “killed Gauri Lankesh”.
According to The News Minute reports, Sirimane Nagaraj and Noor Sridhar, who were brought to the mainstream with Gauri Lankesh’s assistance at a press conference, claimed that Vikram Gowda is innocent.
“There is no possibility of Naxal involvement in Gauri’s death. Vikram Gowda is an Adivasi youth. He is innocent and would never even think of killing Gauri Lankesh. There is news that Gauri was killed by Naxals. But that is not true. Even today, Naxals have great respect for Gauri Lankesh. There are some groups which are trying to make Vikram Gowda the scapegoat,” Noor Sridhar said.
The reformed Naxals held Sangh Parivar responsible for Gauri’s death.
“We are 99% sure that the Sangh Parivaar has a hand in the murder of Gauri Lankesh. I can say with confidence that the Naxals did not kill her. Let the SIT probe the Naxals. I can say with confidence that naxals did not do it. If the RSS is found guilty, then strict action must be taken against them as well,” Sridhar added.
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“Those who considered Gauri as their biggest enemy and had strong hatred towards her, those who are trying to mislead the investigations now by putting the blame on Naxals, those who were hating Gauri, Dr. M. M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narandra Dabholkar equally, those who are celebrating these murders, those who wanted Gauri to die, those who gave threats to her are behind the murder. Its non other than Sangh Parivar,” they alleged, reported Deccan Chronicle.
Noor Sridhar said that there is no possibility of enmity against Gauri Lankesh adding that Naxalites always owns responsibility and even mention the reason for carrying out an attack.
“Naxals are a political organisation. Not a mafia. Whenever attacks have been carried out by naxals, they leave behind a poster or any item which identifies that it was a naxal attack. This was not so in the case of Gauri lankesh. The naxals have attacked bureaucrats but never journalists. Since the time Gauri and a group of journalists helped us come into the mainstream, we have been extremely grateful to her. We would never harm her,” Noor Sridhar said.