India: Concerns Raised Following Killing of Outspoken Journalist

Three days after Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh was gunned down outside her home in the southern state of Karnataka, police have not identified her attackers.

Lankesh, 55, editor of Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada weekly and publisher of her own weekly Gauri Lankesh Patrike, was shot and killed by unidentified assailants outside her Bangalore home on Tuesday. Police sources said they were examining closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage of the attack.

The journalist was identified as an outspoken critic of Hindutva politics, an ideology seeking to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu values, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) government.

“No arrests have been made yet. The investigation is on. We are examining all evidence and all angles. The CCTV footage is being examined,” Jinendra Kanagavi, deputy commissioner of police in Bangalore told BenarNews.

Asked if investigators received any tips into the killing, Kanagavi replied, “Nothing directly has emerged. We are working in different directions. Different teams have been constituted to work on it.”

The state government announced a reward of 1 million rupee (U.S. $15,638) for information leading to the conviction of her killers.