Bengaluru: The Gauri Lankesh murder conspiracy was ironically nicknamed ‘Operation Amma’ by her assassins, said Kavita Lankesh, sister of the late journalist cum activist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her house on September 5 last year after SIT investigators homed in on Parshuram Waghmare as the man who shot at and killed her sister.
“It’s very sad that they allegedly brainwashed Parshuram (Waghmare) to pull the trigger on my sister and so ironic that Parshuram had to kill ‘amma’,” Kavita said, adding that “Parshuram was the only character in the ‘Vedas’ to have killed his mother and the parallel is rather grim here. Gauri was not anti Hindu. She was anti any form of extremist ideology. If she was alive and she knew about the hatred that the conspirators had instilled in Waghmare’s mind against her, she would, in her quintessential style, have invited him to discuss his anger with her over a cup of coffee. She was a very forgiving person.”
Kavita congratulated the Special Investigation Team (SIT), Karnataka, for cracking the “immaculately planned” murder case.
“Gauri’s murder was planned seven to eight months before they got her. But for the tireless efforts of the SIT, Gauri wouldn’t have got justice. She was against capital punishment and all her life she fought against it. Let the law of the land take its own course but in her spirit we would not want the State to take the life of her assassins. We are thankful that there was no political interference in the investigation and her murder was not made a mud-slinging issue during the Assembly elections,” she said.
"During the probe, the team learnt that Suresh Kumar, the contractor, is a follower of Sanatan Sanstha. The team has kept him under the vigil as he is a witness in the Gauri murder case." The SIT is also unearthing information about Suresh Kumar as he was a friend of Sujeeth Kumar alias Praveen, an accused in the Gauri case. "Suresh and Sujeet came to know each other as both had their association with Sanatan Sanstha," he said.
The team had arrested Sujeet in May and later it learnt that Suresh Kumar had given his house in Seegehalli Gate in Magadi Road for 10 days to the two accused on the word of mouth and 'friendship' with Surjeet, a former HJS activist from Karnataka. The SIT has continued to question Waghmare, but it has not yet achieved a breakthrough as the weapon has still not been found.
