“Why should Narendra Modi react if a dog dies in Karnataka?”

This was the answer given by Pramod Muthalik, the chief of Hindutva outfit Sri Ram Sene to answer the PM’s silence in September 2017 after the brutal murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. He was speaking at an event organised by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti in Bengaluru on Sunday. His remarks were met with cheers of “Jai Shri Ram”.

“Two murders took place in Karnataka and two in Maharashtra during Congress rule,” (referring to the deaths of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh) . “No one questioned the Congress government’s failure. Instead, they are asking why is Prime Minister Modi silent and not speaking on Gauri Lankesh’s death. Why should Narendra Modi react if a dog dies in Karnataka?”

He later clarified that he did not compare Gauri Lankesh to a dog but was only asking why Modi should comment on every death in the state.

This narrative comes in the wake of the recent breakthrough findings of the Special Investigation Team(SIT) in the murder. The 6 arrested in Gauri Lankesh murder have links with the Hindu Yuva Sene, Ram Sene and also Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. And the forensic evidence revealed that the same weapon(which is yet to be recovered) was used in all 3 murders, linking them to a single master plan.

Incidentally these were the people who gloated after the killing of Lankesh on social media.