Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday declared that the killers of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh will be nabbed “irrespective of who they are”.
“We are making honest efforts to trace them by having formed a Special Investigation Team. Whoever they are, we are going to trace them,” he said while paying tributes to her in the Assembly. He described her murder as an “onslaught against humanity”.
Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar cautioned the government against framing anyone in the murder case and demanded that efforts should be made to nab the real culprits. Expressing pain over her murder, Y.S.V. Datta, JD(S) MLA, remarked that “intolerance has killed the freedom of expression”.
The Assembly paid tributes to 14 prominent personalities, including former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh, space scientist U.R. Rao and MLAs Qamarul Islam and Chikkamadu.
However, Gauri was not mentioned in the list of obituary motion moved in the Legislative Council to pay tributes to eminent personalities who died recently. This was despite the Assembly paying rich tributes to her.
After leader of the House and leader of Opposition spoke on the obituary motion, Minister U.T. Khader pointed out that Gauri's name had been left out. Council Chairman D.H. Shankarmurthy said names of other personalities had also been left out, and they would be included.