On September 5, 2017, Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh returned home to Bangalore, capital of the southern state of Karnataka, after putting the finishing touches to an article that was due for publication two days later. in his weekly Gauri Lankesh Patrike. Title “The Age of Fake News”, the text returned in detail to the viral dissemination of a rumor launched by Hindu conservatives, accusing the liberal opposition of censorship. It showed that the information, emanating from the ultrapartisan site Postcard Newswas false and had been widely disseminated by militants of the Indian People’s Party (BJP, Hindu nationalists, in power) and far-right activists.
Upon arriving outside her bungalow, on a quiet street away from the noisy center of India’s tech capital, Gauri Lankesh was hit by four handgun shots. She died instantly. Two men, whose image was captured by CCTV cameras, fled on motorcycles.
The assassination of M.me Lankesh is the culmination of a long process, in which the dissemination of false information and the radicalization of political activists play a central role. Forbidden Stories, the France-based nonprofit that continues the work of journalists who have been killed or silenced, investigated for several months with some twenty partners, including The worldon purveyors of misinformation, within the project called “Story Killers”. And, more particularly, on the mercenaries who provide their services to the highest bidder to manipulate public debate, attack dissenting voices and discredit the media and journalists.
A year before his death, Gauri Lankesh had been the victim of a violent online campaign, threatened to the point of reluctantly resolving to install a security camera in his home. The two men who shot her outside her home were quickly found by the police. They await their trial in prison. But, behind those who pulled the trigger, are the disinformants who orchestrated these attacks, who themselves escaped prosecution.
Video manipulated on YouTube to stir up hatred
Since the death of M.me lankesh, Postcard News, the outlet she was investigating, only grew, becoming one of India’s top right-wing cherished sites. Throughout the investigation into this assassination, he led a veritable campaign to seek to blame left-wing extremists, in defiance of all the evidence. The owner of the site, Mahesh Vikram Hegde, is close to the BJP leadership: he founded a communications company with a ministerial adviser to the party and is now at the head of an online media empire. Arrested in 2018 for spreading false information, Mr. Hegde boasted to the police of having “the blessing of several right-wing leaders”, and one of the lawyers who defended him is the head of the BJP’s youth wing.
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