May Soon Ban Right-Wing Sanatan Sanstha, Says Karnataka Deputy CM

The Special Investigating Team (SIT) constituted for probing the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh has named the right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha as responsible for the killing. An additional charge-sheet has been filed in the case. As soon as this was done, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwara said that the coalition government would soon take a decision on whether to ban the accused organisation or not.

A 9,235-page charge-sheet was filed by the SIT on Friday (23 November). So far, 18 people have their names in the list that includes Parashuram Waghmare, Amol Kale, Sujith Kumar, Amit Degwekar. It is believed that the same group was behind the murder of M M Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar, The Indian Express reported.

A preliminary charge-sheet that had been filed on 30 May by the SIT named KT Naveen Kumar. It is suspected that the murder plot originated during a convention of the Sanatan Sanstha that was held in June 2017 in Goa. The report also claims that Gauri had been killed for her “anti-Hindu views”.

Gauri was murdered in September 2017 in front of her residence in Bengaluru.