CPI(ML) condemns the murder of renowned Kannada scholar and ex-Vice Chancellor of Hampi University, Prof MM Kalburgi. Prof Kalburgi was shot dead at his residence in Dharwad.
Prof Kalburgi, 77, had been the target of abuse and threats by the RSS outfits like Bajrang Dal because of his rationalist views and his support for the late UR Ananthamoorthy, whose death had been celebrated by these outfits. After Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, Prof Kalburgi is the third rationalist and anti-superstition activist to be murdered following threats by Hindutva outfits. A local Bajrang Dal leader hailed Prof Kalburgi’s assassination and warned another rationalist KS Bhagwan of the same fate.
The Sanghi terrorists have been feeling emboldened by the Modi Government which had been weakening many terror cases against them. The BJP Government of Maharashtra had been delaying the provision of staff to the CBI to aid the probe into Dabholkar’s murder. The Modi Government and investigative bodies themselves have been harassing anti-communal activists like Teesta Setalvad. A range of anti communal and progressive activists is routinely subjected to threats of violence by Sangh cadres on social media.
CPI(ML) demands a speedy probe into Prof Kalburgi’s murder, and thorough measures to probe the funding and training of Sanghi terror outfits, and judicial intervention to prevent the weakening of the Sanghi terror cases by the NIA at the behest of the Modi Government.
