Rudresh who used to be an RSS and BJP leader was brutally murdered by two bike-borne youths in broad daylight at the heart of Bangalore on 16 October 2016. Rudresh prior to his death was the mandal President of RSS’s Shivajinagar shakha and BJP’s secretary in that part of the city.
The murder took place barely 1 KM away from the happening MG road, following which Rudresh was rushed to a hospital where he was declared dead. He was survived by his wife and two kids.
In the aftermath, the NIA described the murder as a terrorist act and the police arrested five individual including a Popular Front of India (PFI) leader in connection with the crime. 40-year-old Azim Sharief is believed to be the main accused in the matter.
Now about a year and a half after Rudresh’s murder, India Today’s Shiv Aroor produced a segment over this crime and its electoral impact, which he claims involves four workers belonging to the radical Islamist organisation PFI. During the segment, he also interviewed Rudresh’s widow, who despite the threatening nature of her late husband’s murder, remains an active political worker for the BJP.
After expressing her and her family’s difficulty in dealing with Rudresh’s death, which includes her two young children, she urged the government and the law and order machinery to be more prompt in its action with regards to the political murders, especially of RSS workers. She affirming that her late husband’s case was taken to a certain level of investigative conclusion, but expressed her unawareness over the status of similar murders which have taken place in coastal Karnataka.
When asked whether her husband’s brutal murder should become an issue in this election, she replied in affirmative owing to Rudresh’s murder resulting in a void both in his family and the election constituency, which she realises while interacting with people during her day to day party work.
Over the prospect of her getting possible justice for her husband, she expressed how justice won’t bring her husband back, but hoped that they can receive some form of it in the coming days.
