The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday slapped a legal notice on author Ramachandra Guha for allegedly linking the Sangh Parivar with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, and asked him to apologise publicly for the same.
The legal notice, sent by Karunakar Khasale, state secretary of Karnataka BJP’s Yuva Morcha, said Guha, in an interview to a news portal on September 6, mentioned Sangh Parivar in connection with Lankesh’s murder.
Guha responded to the notice through a series tweets. "in India today, independent writers and journalists are harassed, persecuted, and even killed. But we shall not be silenced." He also tweeted, "Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the answer to a book or article can only be another book or article. But we no longer live in Vajpayee's India."
“It is very likely that her murderers came from the same Sangh Parivar from which the murderers of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi came,” the notice quoted Guha as saying in the interview to Scroll.in.
In India today, independent writers and journalists are harassed, persecuted, and even killed. But we shall not be silenced.
— Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) September 11, 2017
“You have alleged that the perpetrators of the said crimes belong to our client’s organisation... As on today, the investigations into the said incidents are still in progress and have not yet concluded. No trial has taken place against any person, much less any conviction.
“Under such circumstances, without any basis or proof, you have given false and mischievous statements clearly calculated to defame our client’s organisation and its members,” the notice read.
It asked Guha to “categorically and clearly apologise publicly” for making such allegations “within three days from the date of receipt of this notice”, adding that the organisation (RSS) to which “you impute criminal motives, is a group of highly reputed and well regarded nationalist organisations”.
“While the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is the world’s largest voluntary socio-cultural organisation involved in humanitarian and service activities around the world, the BJP is the world’s largest democratic political party, currently in power in the Union government,” it said.
The notice said if Guha fails to apologise, the BJP would be would be “constrained to initiate” civil and criminal prosecution against him. Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead by yet unidentified assailants at her residence in Bengaluru on September 5. She was known for her strong views against right wing Hindutva politics.
