Gauri’s death invites national outrage, after Nirbhaya

The most dastardly act of the gruesome murder of a women journalist and a committed social activist fighting courageously for rights of the women and down trodden and equally countering the communal and divisive tendencies has resulted in an all round condemnation and expression of furious dissent against the forces that be, by journalists, intellectuals, socio political organisations, youths, students and women nationally. Such a dastardly act of a diabolical murder in a row has while made everybody in the country sad, anguished and utterly shocked  there are still people with chauvinistic bent of mind who are shamelessly planting fake and biased news terming the deceased woman journalist as an extortionist, biased and even vindicating the horrendous act,  for her actions of opposing the forces of religious fundamentalists and bigotry.

Instead of expressing their tributes for the departed soul as a normal human being, these disgruntled elements are rather misusing the social networking sites to ferociously and erroneously counter those speaking in favor or expressing solidarity or sympathy with the victim journalist, her cause, ideology or writings. The point is, can a voice of dissent in a free democracy be scuttled or smothered by gun ? Does our constitution or the law permit anybody to kill those who represent ideology or writing against some other thought or VICHARDHARA. Is such killing of a progressive journalist who’s against fake news, against forces of division, reaction and fanaticism or who democratically oppose a system,  permissible in the country of Gandhi and Lord Budha , the father of the nation and apostles of peace.

If fundamentalism, chauvinism or bigotry is not responsible for such dastardly actions of shocking trails of murders in a row then why is it that only Dabolkar, Kulbargi, Pansare and Gauri Lankesh are murdured with guns from point blank range and why is it that the culprits are not caught ever after several years of investigation? asks script writer Saleem Javed in a tweet without naming them. Here, why so much of fuss is being created by planting so much  highly objectionable news against the deceased journalist who died in cold blood just because she was a vociferous and eloquent opposer of orthodox practices, communalism and religious fanaticism. These dissenters of her say she was a leftist and a progressive and therefore opposed to the right wing politics but then should it mean that she should be killed brutally and that those standing with her family and ideology are traitors, extortionist,   anti national and bad people even if they are well read, well educated, patriotic and respectable people of the country. The fact of the matter is killing of any human being whether he or she is from right, left, center or free thinking ideology is highly condemnable and should be unitedly opposed as the criminal or the murderers never represent any thought or ideology. We should respect human beings n their existence first and any physical assault, violence or killing is totally unacceptable in a civilized society. Even the prime minister Narendra Modi has come out heavily and strongly against the shocking incidents of lynchings in various parts of the country and had warned of severe action against the perpetrators. He has out-rightly condemned violence in the name of faith in the land of Gandhi and Budha.

The various political parties of the country should give up giving political color to such dastardly killings and instead work for the expeditious arrest of the hardened criminals so that they can be tried severely under the strictest sections of the law. It’s anguishing and disturbing to note that India has till now witnessed 66 RTI activists having been killed in various parts of the country with five committing suicides. The trend of killing still goes on. Meanwhile after the planting of highly objectionable tweets, even expressing pleasure over the sad demise of journalist Gauri Lankesh the authorities concerned have warned of seizing the twitter accounts of such ruthless users. The way Gauri’s death invited national outrage, after the mind boggling Nirbhaya episode, it’s for sure that her untimely death will inspire many many more to follow her footsteps.

SUNIL NEGI