If Gauri Lankesh had not been shot, she would have been at the forefront of the anti-CAA protests, said her sister and filmmaker Kavitha Lankesh.
In the two-and-a-half years since journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead in Bengaluru, the political situation has only worsened with people feeling increasingly unsafe in their own country, Ms. Lankesh said. “It is a country run by fascists and incompetent people, where people are hunted down and shot,” she said.
Ms. Lankesh was in the city to inaugurate a two-day cultural event commemorating Bob Marley’s 75th birthday, organised by the People’s Political Platform at Fort Kochi. A few lines she read out in memory of her sister said that if Gauri Lankesh, who had not even had an Aadhaar card, had been around, she would have been “behind bars for sedition, or in a detention camp, or shot over and over again.”
Pointing to the growing atmosphere of repression, she said that they were denied permission for a meet in Bengaluru last month to mark Gauri’s birthday.
In the event of the 18th suspect in Gauri Lankesh’s murder being arrested last month, Ms. Lankesh said that finding the masterminds who planned the attack was important, rather than just those who executed it.
She hoped that the fight against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act would continue. Kerala was one of the States actively fighting it with many women in the forefront, she said.