BJP serves legal notice to Ramachandra Guha

Bengaluru: The BJP state Yuva Morcha has served a legal notice on noted author and historian Ramachandra Guha for claiming that people associated with Sangh Parivar had killed journalist Gauri Lankesh. 

In the notice, the BJP Yuva Morcha secretary said that Mr Guha should apologise or face criminal action. The legal notice was served by advocate Tejasvi Surya of Haranahalli Associates, who sent the notice to Mr Guha on behalf of state secretary of BJP Yuva Morcha, Karunakara Khasale. The notice cited Mr Guha's interview to online news portal, Scroll.in on September 6 in which Mr Guha said, "It is very likely that her murderers came from the same Sangh Parivar from which the murderers of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi came," Similar statement was also on the Hindustan Times website, the advocate noted.     

The notice said that the utterances of Mr Guha was intended to bring disrepute to “my client and his organisation with ulterior motive. The direct allegation, insinuations and innuendos made by you deliberately and with full knowledge impute criminal conduct on our client and its members.” Mr Khasale said that his organisation was a highly reputed and well-regarded nationalist organisation having members throughout the world, upholding the constitutional values of the country. “While the RSS is the world’s largest socio-cultural organisation involved in humanitarian and service activities and the BJP, the party which is the world’s largest democratic political party is currently in power in the Union government,” Mr Khasale states, claiming that on seeing the statements, several sympathisers called up the offices of these organisations to enquire about the organisation’s role in the Gauri’s killing. “You are called upon to refrain from making similar or identical statements/allegations against our client’s organisation and its members. You are also called upon to tender unconditional apology. If you fail to comply with the aforesaid instructions our client has instructed us to inform you that he would be constrained to initiate civil and criminal prosecution against you at your sole costs and consequences.”