Bangalore, March 13: Black ink was smeared on a "progressive" Kannada writer in the northern Karnataka town of Davanagere yesterday, allegedly by Right-wing activists who warned him against "vilifying" Hindu gods.
The nine men attacked Yogesh Master when he was having tea after attending a programme and threatened to kill him if he continued writing against Hindu beliefs and gods.
Yogesh had been targeted by Hindutva activists after he was arrested in 2013 for allegedly besmirching Lord Ganesha in his novel Dhundi. But this is the first time he was physical attacked. Yogesh was yesterday attending a literary event organised by the Kannada tabloid Gauri Lankesh.
Two of the attackers were arrested today, Davanagere superintendent of police Bhimashankar Guled told reporters. According to the officer, the attackers had chanted "Jai Sri Ram" before fleeing the spot.
Sources said the attackers had also pulled Yogesh by the hair and abused him.
The police have registered a case of assault and criminal intimidation and formed four special teams to arrest the remaining accused in the case that has rattled literary circles in Karnataka.
After the incident, writers led by Yogesh marched to the local police station to lodge a complaint seeking action against the attackers.
CPM state secretary Sriram Reddy linked the incident to the Uttar Pradesh election results. "Each election result in favour of the BJP is emboldening these fascist elements," he said when contacted by The Telegraph .
The party joined several secular groups in staging protests in Bangalore and other districts of Karnataka.
"I strongly believe this tendency to attack progressive people started after Narendra Modi came to power in Delhi. What is clear now is India is sitting on a communal volcano," Reddy said.
The murder of rationalist scholar M. M. Kalburgi in Karnataka in August 2015 is yet to be solved. The two assailants who shot him dead are still at large.
"What started off in Dadri has now reached Davanagere. All these are works of fascist forces out to create communal disturbance and sow the seeds of suspicion in the minds of common people," said Reddy, referring to the 2015 lynching of Mohammad Akhlaque on the unsubstantiated rumours that he had stored beef.
In October 2015, a young Dalit writer and journalism student, Huchangi Prasad, was beaten up on the Davanagere University campus by a group of men who had also threatened to chop off his finger if he wrote "against Hinduism". Prasad had written a book against the caste system.
Days later, Kannada filmmaker and writer Chethana Thirthahalli had received rape threats after she endorsed beef-eating in the wake of the Dadri lynching.
