A prominent Indian journalist, who was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing political ideology, was shot in the southern city of Bengaluru. Gauri Lankesh, 55, was found dead outside her home late on Tuesday, 5 September.

The female journalist, the editor of the vernacular weekly Gauri Lankesh Patrike, was seen as a leading voice from the left-wing intelligentsia and was fiercely anti-establishment. Lankesh was the daughter of famous poet-turned-journalist P Lankesh, who was a leading figure in journalism in the Karnataka state.

She was fired several times at a close range by multiple unidentified assailants. At least three suspects were involved in the incident. Of the seven bullets sprayed at her, three had hit the journalist including one on her head.

"This is not the death of a journalist, but the death of democracy and constitutional values. She had raised her voice against communal violence with us and we know that all our lives are in danger. But we did not expect this," said KL Ashok, who runs a communal harmony forum and was a close associate of the victim.

Police have formed three teams to find the attackers, who are thought to be professional killers. Lankesh's family said they hope the CCTV cameras in the house would help catch the perpetrators.

Protests and condolence meetings have been planned across Bengaluru to condemn Lankesh's murder. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has called for an emergency meeting of top government officials to address the situation.

"Gauri Lankesh was a known critic of the Central government on key issues and had fearlessly expressed her views in the newspaper she edited as well as in other forums. Her killing is an ominous portent for dissent in democracy and a brutal assault on the freedom of the press," said the journalists' associated Editors Guild of India.</s>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A senior Indian journalist was shot dead on Tuesday in the southern city of Bengaluru by unidentified assailants, police said.

The body of Gauri Lankesh, the editor of an Indian weekly newspaper, was found lying in a pool of blood outside her home.

“People in front of her house heard gunshots,” the city’s Police commissioner, T. Suneel Kumar, told reporters. “We found four empty cartridges from the scene.”

Lankesh was known as a fearless and outspoken journalist. She was a staunch critic of right-wing political ideology.

Last year, she was convicted of criminal defamation for one of her articles.

While the motivation for the killing was not immediately clear, political leaders, journalists and activists took to Twitter to express their outrage and denounce intolerance and any threat to free speech.

Karnataka state’s chief minister Siddaramaiah called it an “assassination on democracy”.</s>Unidentified attackers fatally shoot staunch editor of Lankesh Patrike weekly magazine at her home in the southern city.

A prominent Indian journalist has been shot dead by unidentified attackers at her residence in the southern city of Bangalore, according to police.

Gauri Lankesh, the 55-year-old editor of the weekly local magazine Lankesh Patrike, was attacked on Tuesday as she left her car after reaching her home in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state.

READ MORE: Is free speech under threat in Modi's India?

Police officer R K Dutta said it was too early to say who killed her. He told The Associated Press agency that he had met Lankesh recently, but she did not talk of any threat to her life.

Last year, Lankesh was found responsible in a defamation case by a politician of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for her writing about Hindu nationalists.

In 2015, an Indian scholar and critic of religious superstition, Malleshappa M Kalburgi, was killed in a similar way in Bangalore after receiving death threats from angry right-wing Hindu groups for criticising idol woship.

He was the third critic of religious superstition to be killed in the country in three years.

Lankesh's friends described her as a fearless and outspoken journalist.

Following the news of her death, politicians, writers and fellow journalists took to social media to express their outrage at the "heinous crime".

Lankesh was the daughter of famous poet-turned-journalist P Lankesh, who started Lankesh Patrike.</s>In a shocking development, Gauri Lankesh, a well-known journalist from Karnataka, has been shot dead in Bengaluru. Kannada news channels are claiming that she was killed at her residence in Rajarajeshwari Nagar.

Seven bullets were fired at Gauri Lankesh by unindentified miscreants and she was hit in the forehead and chest regions, say TV reports.

Gauri Lankesh was entering her house after parking her car. She was opening the door when the unidenfied men men sprayed bullets. She collapsed and died on spot, reports News 9.

She is the second scholar-rationalist to be assassinated in Karnataka in less than two years after former vice-chancellor of Hampi University M M Kalburgi.

Gauri Lankesh was the daughter of eminent Kannada journalist P Lankesh. She was the editor of 'Gauri Lankesh Patrike.</s>Senior Kannada journalist and social activist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on Tuesday night by unidentified men at her residence, police said. She was 55.

"She was shot dead from a close range at her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar (in the suburbs) around 8 p.m. as she was entering the house," Bengaluru Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar told reporters here.

"A total of seven bullets were fired out of which four missed the target and hit the wall of the house. Three bullets had hit her -- two in her chest area and one in the forehead," he said.

Her brother Indrajit Lankesh demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the death.

"I don't have any words to say. It is shocking that my sister, a journalist and activist, was targeted this way," he told reporters.

"There must be a CBI investigation into the death and there must be severe punishment for the killers," he said.

The Commissioner meanwhile said that police have "extracted the footage from CCTVs around the house and will examine it closely".

"We will register a case of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and set up a special team to nab her killers," a police official told IANS.

Lankesh was Editor of the weekly Kannada tabloid "Lankesh Patrika".

Karnataka's new Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy, who rushed to the spot with the Police Commissioner, told reporters that the assailants probably fired seven rounds.

"Within minutes, seven rounds were fired at close range. She was attacked outside her residence. As she had not sought police protection, no security was provided to her," Reddy said.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah condemned the crime. "Absolutely shocked to learn about the murder of renowned journalist Gauri Lankesh. I have no words to condemn this heinous crime," he tweeted.A

"Gauri was an advocate of secularism. She fought against injustice," he told the media here.

"Police has formed three teams and begun investigations," Siddaramaiah said, adding that he had directed police to nab the killers at the earliest.

Congress state unit chief G. Parameshwara called her death a "great loss to the community of independent journalism". "Lost a dear friend, an accomplished journalist and a wonderful human being," he said.

A prominent Left thinker and a staunch critic of Hindutva politics, Lankesh was convicted last year in a defamation case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Pralhad Joshi.

Her siblings Indrajit Lankesh and Kavitha Lankesh are both film-makers in the Kannada film industry.

The manner in which Lankesh was shot dead was reminiscent of the way Kannada progressive thinker and researcher M.M. Kalburgi was shot dead in August 2015 at his residence in Dharwad in the state's northwest region, about 400km from Bengaluru.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday expressed her "alarm" over Lankesh's killing and demanded justice.

"Saddened at the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru. Most unfortunate. Very alarming. We want justice," she tweeted.

Biotech firm Biocon's Chairman and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw tweeted: "Shocking and blood curdling to hear about the murder of Gauri Lankesh. These monstrous criminals must be nailed n dealt with sternly".</s>Senior journalist, editor and activist Gauri Lankesh, 55, was shot dead by unidentified assailants at the entrance of her home in Bengaluru West on Tuesday evening. Four bullets were pumped into the editor of the Kannada weekly Lankesh Patrike at her doorstep after she had stepped out of her car and opened the gates to her home which lay in darkness at around 8 pm.

Neighbours came out of a flat opposite the home where the journalist lived alone on what they thought were sounds of firecrackers and found Gauri lying in a pool of blood on her porch barely a metre away from the locked verandah to her home. “Normally, she works late hours because she is a journalist. Today she seemed to have returned home earlier than usual,’’ a neighbour said.

The assailants were either following Lankesh on her way back home from work or were waiting in the neighborhood for her arrival, police said.

 “I just sat down for dinner when I heard the firecracker type of sounds. When I came out, there were people in all the balconies and the gate was lying open with a car waiting to enter. There was no one else around,’’ said Manohar a watchman at the apartments opposite the journalist’s house.

 Some neighbours claimed to have seen two men moving up and down several times on a motorcycle on the quiet street in the Ideal Homes colony in Rajarajeshwarinagar through the day.

“The incident happened at exactly 8 pm and four bullets were fire in her chest,’’ a police inspector said. “The shots were fired from a very close range inside the compound of the house. She had been living alone in recent days after her elderly mother moved to her sister’s house,’’ said Shivasundar, a longtime journalist colleague of Gauri Lankesh.

Police are hoping that CCTV footage from cameras Gauri Lankesh had put up at her home — at the insistence of friends — may yield some clues on the identities of the killers. “She has faced a lot of threats. If you see her social media profile, there are constant threats from right wing forces whom she strongly opposed all her life. She was reluctant and did not care too much for her personal safety. There were also some incidents of theft at the home a while ago so we forced her to set up some security cameras and we are hoping that it will yield some results because they were on when the incident occurred,’’ Shivasundar said.

Supporters and friends of the journalist, who was known for a strident opposition to Hindutva forces, drew parallels between the killing of Gauri Lankesh and the 2015 murder of rationalist and writer M M Kalburgi. Kalburgi was shot dead by two unidentified persons who came on a motorcycle. The assailants knocked on the door of the Dharwad home of the 77-year-old Sahitya Akademi Award winner and shot Kalburgi on the doorstep with two bullets from a 7.65 mm country made pistol.

The murder of Kalburgi remains unsolved to date. The biggest finding in the Kalburgi murder case, being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Karnataka police, so far is the fact that the 7.65 mm pistol used for the killing of the rationalist is the same gun that was used to murder 81-year-old Maharashtra rationalist and leftist thinker Govind Pansare in Kohlapur on February 16, 2015 by two unidentified men.

 Forensic analysis has also revealed that one of the two guns used to shoot down Pansare in 2015 was also used to kill Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune on August 20, 2013 by a pair of unidentified men.

Lankesh’s close friend and women’s right activist K S Vimala said: “They have killed her because she always opposed communal forces. First, it was Kalburgi and now it is Gauri. They can kill her but they cannot kill her thoughts.”

In recent days, Gauri Lankesh was actively involved in bringing many persons involved with the Naxal movement in Karnataka back into the mainstream with the co-operation of the Karnataka goverment where she enjoyed a good rapport with chief minister Siddaramaiah. The CM said there police teams have been constituted to probe the killing. He also said that he had asked police to get in touch with their Maharashtra counterparts probing the murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar. Said Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy: “It will not be appropriate for me to make any comments as to who is behind the incident. It could be for personal reasons or for ideological reasons.”

Lankesh was convicted in a defamation case filed by BJP MP Prahlad Joshi over a report published in her paper. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore tweeted: “Terrible news from Bengaluru about the heinous murder of Gauri Lankesh. I condemn all acts of violence against journalists.” BJP national general secretary P Muralidhar Rao said: “The murder of Gauri Lankesh is condemnable outright. Onus is on Siddaramaiah to ensure proper investigation.”

For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App</s>Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was on Tuesday shot dead by unidentified assailants at her residence in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar. The news was confirmed by city police commissioner. She was the editor of Lankesh Patrike, a weekly Kannada magazine and had been a staunch critic of Hindutva politics.

According to reports, Lankesh succumbed to multiple bullet wounds on her body. Reflecting on the incident, DCP (West) MN Anucheth said her body was found on the veranda of her house.

Last year, she was held guilty in a defamation case filed by MP Prahlad Joshi and party associate Umesh Dushi over an article published on January 23, 2008, alleging that some BJP leaders in the region were involved in a cheating case.

Condemning the “heinous crime”, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he was shocked to learn of the murder of the renowned journalist. “Absolutely shocked to learn about the murder of renowned journalist Gauri Lankesh. I have no words to condemn this heinous crime,” he tweeted.

“In fact, this is an assassination on democracy. In her passing, Karnataka has lost a strong progressive voice, and I have lost a friend,” the CM added.

Lankesh, who was in her 50s, was the daughter of famous poet-turned-journalist P Lankesh, who started Lankesh Patrike.

A host of journalists have strongly condemned the murder of the prominent journalist on social media. “As a friend, colleague & admirer for decades shocked & shattered to hear of the murder of Gauri Lankesh, one of India’s gutsiest journalists,” said Vir Sanghvi, an eminent media personality.

Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan tweeted: “Shocking & tragic! Brave journalist Gauri Lankesh who exposed the BJP has been shot dead in her home in Bangalore!”

For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App</s>Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead in her home in Rajarajeshwarinagar area of Bengaluru on Tuesday, ANI reported. Unidentified men had reached her house on Tuesday night and fired at her before escaping, The News Minute reported.

“There has been a shootout at Gauri Lankesh’s house this evening,” Deputy Commissioner of Police MN Anucheth told ANI. “She is no more. Her body was found in her veranda.”

Her brother Indrajit demanded that the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, India Today reported.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah condemned her murder and described it as an assassination of democracy. “Absolutely shocked to learn about the murder of renowned journalist Gauri Lankesh,” Siddaramaiah tweeted. “I have no words to condemn this heinous crime.”

“In her passing, Karnataka has lost a strong progressive voice, and I have lost a friend,” the chief minister said.

Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara said Lankesh’s death was a great loss to the field of journalism, The Hindu reported. “Lost a dead friend, an accomplished journalist and a wonderful human being. Miscreants will be brought to book very soon,” he said.

Lankesh was the daughter of journalist and writer P Lankesh.

In November 2016, Lankesh was convicted in two separate defamation cases for her article from January 2008 criticising leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party. She was out on bail in the case.

The article was published in Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada newspaper which was published, owned and edited by her. The article alleged that BJP MP from Dharwad, Prahalad Joshi, had been directly involved in criminal activities.

Lankesh was a known critic of the right, telling Newslaundry in an interview in 2016 after her conviction that “Modi Bhakts and the Hindutva Brigade” are “keen to somehow shut me up,” adding that they would like to see her behind bars.</s>A veteran Indian journalist known for her outspoken criticism of Hindu nationalist politics has been shot dead in the southern city of Bangalore in Karnataka state.

Police who recovered the body of Gauri Lankesh, 55, on Tuesday night said she had been killed by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle, The Times of India reports . Her body was reportedly found lying in a pool of blood near the door of her house.

Lankesh was the editor of left-wing independent newspaper Lankesh Patrike , founded by her late father , a renowned poet-turned-journalist. She also started her own newspaper, the Gauri Lankesh Patrike .

Activists say journalists are being increasingly targeted by radical Hindu nationalists and her death is the latest in a string of assassinations targeting journalists and secularists critical of extreme Hindu nationalism and religious superstition in India. In 2015, scholar Malleshappa M. Kalburgi was shot dead at his home in Bangalore and earlier that same year politician and writer Govind Pansare was killed.

"The attack on the select writers is obviously happening because they are able to mould public opinion... there is a pattern in the way assailants come on motorbikes, kill, and vanish," Karnataka-based writer K Marulasiddappa told the BBC. "There cannot be any personal reasons attributed to her death because she had no personal enemies. So, the possibility is only political.''

Karnataka state's chief minister Siddaramaiah condemned the killing and promised a thorough investigation into the death of Lankesh, who he described on Twitter as a "progressive force."

At the time of her death, Lankesh was on bail appealing the verdict of a defamation case that had resulted in a six month jail sentence for a story on local leaders of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.</s>New Delhi (CNN) A prominent Indian journalist and activist has been shot dead in the southern state of Karnataka.

The body of Gauri Lankesh, 55, was found lying in a pool of blood on the porch at her home in Bangalore on Tuesday night.

A staunch critic of Hindu nationalist politics, last year Lankesh was convicted of defamation and sentenced to six months in prison for a story on a local leader of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

At the time of her death, Lankesh was on bail appealing the verdict.

Bangalore Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar told reporters that four empty cartridges had been recovered from the scene of the crime.

Lankesh had been shot from close range with three bullets hitting her on the neck and chest.

"Gauri Lankesh was never afraid of speaking truth to power. Her assassination must be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice," said Asmita Basu, Programs Director at Amnesty International India.

"The police must investigate whether she was killed because of her journalism."

"Shocked to learn about murder of tall progressive force and senior journalist Gauri Lankesh. Such cold-blooded acts deserve highest condemnation," added Siddaramaiah.

Lankesh was the editor of the newspaper Lankesh Patrike, founded by her father, a journalist and activist himself.

She went on to set up her own weekly magazine, the Gauri Lankesh Patrike.

Her killing bears similarities to the death of scholar MM Kalburgi, 77, who was shot dead outside his home in Dharwad, Karnataka in November 2015.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been no convictions in any of the 27 cases of journalists murdered for their work in India since 1992.

One of Lankesh's last tweets before her death read, "Why do I feel that some of 'us' are fighting between ourselves? We all know our 'biggest enemy'. Can we all please concentrate on that?"

Her killing like others before her "raises alarms about the state of freedom of expression in the country," according to a statement issued by Amnesty International India.
Prominent Indian journalist and Lankesh Patrike editor Gauri Lankesh is shot dead by unidentified men outside her house in the city of Bengaluru.