Responding to several investigative reports that suggest that he is being targeted by veteran journalist Gauri Lankesh’s killers, actor Prakash Raj said that he is “not threatened”, that his voice would only “grow stronger” and that they wouldn’t manage to get away by playing “hate politics”.
According to an investigation conducted by the SIT probing the Gauri Lankesh murder case, which was shared on a local Kannada news channel, Raj was the next target of Lankesh’s killers, after he had taken to criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP on public platforms, reports The Indian Express.
The actor had earlier called out Modi for not speaking a word on the killing of Gauri Lankesh.
According to the report, the investigation suggested that the killers had also planned to eliminate Jnanpeetha awardee Girish Karnad in an operation they named ‘operation kaka’.
According to TheTelegraph, other than Raj and Karnad, the names of rationalist scholar K S Bhagawan, writer and Congress leader B T Lalitha Naik, author C.S. Dwarakanath and pontiff Veerabhadra Channamalla Swamy have also been mentioned in what appears to be a list of their targets.
The report adds that following the SIT’s findings, the state police were quick to provide armed security protection to Raj, which is generally assigned to those persons believed to be under threat.
Bangalore police provided me with armed security soon after the SIT found out about the plot. Now that I am in Hyderabad, the police here have deployed an armed policeman to accompany me.Prakash Raj to The Telegraph
He also stated that although he wasn’t scared, he has resigned to the fact that what he had said countless times before – that Hindutva forces would go to any lengths to silence those questioning their leaders – had come true.
"What I am really worried about is how these people manage to brainwash these youngsters (like those arrested in the Gauri case)," Raj said, The Telegraph reported.
He added that those who believe in the ideology put forth by the BJP government are “extremely dangerous to the society and the nation”.
(With inputs from The Indian Express and The Telegraph)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)