Four teams have been formed by police as part of its probe into the murder of noted Kannada progressive thinker and scholar M M Kalburgi, who was shot dead at his residence at Dharwad in north Karnataka on Sunday.
'They killed one Gauri, but now there will be lakhs of people who will continue to do Gauri's work.'
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A day after the anti-superstition and black magic ordinance was passed by the Maharashtra cabinet, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan tells Neeta Kolhatkar in an exclusive interview that 'fundamentalists' behind the cold-blooded murder of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar will try to scuttle the Bill, but he will fight for it.
CPI leader says the attack is a conspiracy by communal forces to hush up those who have shown courage to stand up to them.
Two alleged firearm dealers, arrested in connection with the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder case, were on Tuesday remanded in police custody till January 28 by a local court in Pune.
"The other Hindu organisations have some or the other backing. They have not been taking the hard stance on certain issues like we do," he added.
'A message was sent to society that those who question dogmas and believe in scientific methods will be silenced.' Hamid Dabholkar tells Neeta Kolhatkar why he is disappointed that his father Narendra Dabholkar's killers have not been arrested yet.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's carping ally said the police assertion about security threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Maoists was just a 'conspiracy theory'.
Dabholkar was shot dead in August, 2013 while Lankesh was shot dead in September, 2017.
'It isn't likely that he would have observed a 'strategic silence' on a sensitive and controversial issue, as is done today by the powers-that-be lest an observation lets the cat out of the bag about the ruling dispensation's mindset,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The probe agency told the court that Andure is one of the two assailants who shot at Dabholkar at Omkareshwar Bridge here on August 20, 2013.
According to experts, religious and spiritual influences can affect life decisions beyond the normal.
Meanwhile, the Sanatan Sanstha alleged that Tawde was being 'implicated' by the probe agency on the basis of false allegations levelled by a witness, who himself is facing criminal charges.
A group of academics and scholars on Friday expressed their outrage and anger against the "assault on academic and constitutional freedom", joining the recent protests by writers, artistes, filmmakers, historians and scientists over "rising intolerance".
The author was flooded with a barrage of hate messages following his tweet in support of writers who returned their Sahitya Akademi awards.
Veteran Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare, who was shot at earlier this week, died at a hospital in Mumbai late Friday night after he was airlifted for treatment to the city this evening from Kolhapur. He was 82.
In another twist in the Sheena Bora murder case, bone samples of her charred body collected in 2012 were found by forensic experts to be not matching those obtained from the remains which were exhumed recently.
An SIT officer probing the murder case said the investigation is in final stage and a chargesheet will be filed in two months.
'With his stature as a playwright and actor, Girish Karnad was one of the voices of modernity for not just Karnataka but the entire country.'
Rise up for the right to offend. Let there be no holy cow, person, religion, ideology that cannot be criticised, ridiculed, parodied, lampooned. That's what differentiates you from the bigots who entered Charlie Hebdo, says Mango Indian.
The police didn't confirm if the weapons used in murder of writer M.M. Kalburgi and Lankesh were similar.
Over 200 noted authors, including Salman Rushdie and Neel Mukherjee, have asked British Prime Minister David Cameron to raise the issue of "rising climate of fear" and "growing intolerance" in India during his talks with his counterpart Narendra Modi.
'It is worrisome that religion, politics and strong regional biases have pervaded our police force.'
The National Investigation Agency on Tuesday informed the Bombay high court that it cannot probe into the murder of anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar as the offence fell under the Indian Police Code and was not covered under the purview of NIA Act.
He, however, did not name these 'influential and wealthy people'.
'If the Sanatan Sanstha is a threat to peaceful co-existence and Goa's culture, then I must stand up against such threats.'
'And if you think this is alarmist nonsense, you are helping it happen,' says Mitali Saran.
Among very few woman editors in Kannada journalism, she was a fierce activist, who openly expressed her pro-Naxal and Leftist views.
Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the government on the issue of intolerance telling it not to learn the "wrong lessons" from the Pakistan.
In another development, the CBI submitted in a sealed cover a forensic report from Ahmedabad Forensic Laboratory on ballistic evidence related to the killing of the three rationalists --- Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi.
Sameer Gaikwad, in his early 30s, was arrested from Sangli in a joint operation by the Kolhapur and the local police.
'He wanted to fire, I held his hand tight so that he would not be able to shoot.'
Police have claimed that the probe into the murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar is on the "right track". But no concrete clue to the broad daylight slaying seems to have emerged a month after the incident that jolted the progressive social movement in Maharashtra.
'RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was on the Hindu extremists' hit-list. In June 2008, this information was made public. Prior to that, you should hear Bhagwat's speeches and listen to his 'liberal' statements.' 'After he was informed that he was on their hit-list, he became a hardliner. He was not like that before.'
Bharadwaj claimed a number of human rights lawyers, activists and organisations were deliberately named to cast a stigma over them, obstruct their work and incite hatred against them.
'There are many serious crimes in which powerful and fake babas have been involved in... The states where this is prevalent are Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and even Delhi,' CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat tells Neeta Kolhatkar.
The Maharashtra government dillydallied for over seven years to pass the anti-superstition and black magic bill, and it took the murder of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, who tirelessly pushed for the bill, to goad it into passing it through the ordinance route at its cabinet meeting on Wednesday as a tribute to him
Close on the heels of the arrest of a man allegedly having links with right-wing outfit Sanatan Sansthan in connection with the murder of Communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare, a 32-year-old woman has been picked up by police for questioning from Kanjurmarg in Mumbai suburb.
The close-onto four years (since November 2015) Peter has spent in Arthur Road jail, central Mumbai, in judicial custody, have taken their toll, lending him a bit of a melancholy stoop, a laborious gait and a tired face, turning him prematurely into a much older man than his nearly 64 years. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
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