Slain journalist Gauri Lankesh adored Kerala, hoped to eat beef

Thiruvananthapuram: Slain Bengaluru-based journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh had dearly loved Kerala and had even planned to be in Kerala for Onam — on another occasion before she was murdered in Bengaluru on Monday by unidentified assailants.

Lankesh had shared a video posted by Kerala MP, Shashi Tharoor and praised Keralites for their secular outlook in a social media post hours before she was murdered.

Posting a video of a group of nuns doing a traditional Onam dance around a flowerbed, Lankesh wrote on social media, ‘Keralites celebrating Onam. Religious differences be damned. This is why they call their country as God’s own country’.

The senior journalist who was highly respected in her profession, went on: ‘Please, my Mallu friends, please keep up your spirit of secularism’, and went on to add, ‘Hopefully next time I’m in God’s own country, someone will get me nice Kerala beef dish’.

In the Kerala capital, dozens of journalist joined a protest march to focus attention on the dastardly murder of the journalist and to highlight the increase in violence against those who stand up to raise their opinion.

Members of the Press Club Thiruvananthapuram and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists participated in the protest march.

Earlier, former judge and a past chairman of the Press Council of India, Markandeya Katju had also made a social media post, praising the worldview of Keralites and their emphasis on secularism.