Indian Hindu group claims murder of idol worship critic

India boasts national tolerance for a panoply of religious allegiances—Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism, and a smattering of primitive tribal religions. But critics of the Hindu majority must tread lightly—in some cases upon pain of death. Waves of religious extremism still lap the subcontinent, with the cold-blooded murder of Malleshappa M. Kalburgi, an elderly academic and outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, offering the most recent example.

Sunday, in southern Karnataka state, two unidentified assailants knocked at the door of Kalburgi’s home and greeted him before putting a bullet in his head and one in his chest. Authorities are still on the hunt for the shooters, who made a swift getaway before the scholar’s family could identify them.

Police Inspector S.S. Hiremath said an investigation is underway, but declined to comment further. The Times of India reports a Hindu fundamentalist group allegedly claimed a hand in Kalburgi’s murder, issuing warnings to other “radical thinkers.”

India’s Hindu hardliners are increasingly emboldened since the 2014 election of President Narendra Modi, who heads the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kalburgi, an atheist, was something of a religious renegade in his home state of Karnataka, where nearly 9-in-10 people practice Hinduism. According to a recent Time article, Kalburgi received death threats from right-wing Hindu groups after publicly condemning idol worship as “meaningless ritual.”

The Huffington Post reports Kalburgi sparked statewide protests last year by referencing an inflammatory essay criticizing religious extremism, “Why offering prayers in the nude is wrong.” An article appearing last year in the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (Hindu Committee for Renaissance) includes a controversial slice of the essay, in which the author describes himself urinating on a village idol: “I wanted to ascertain that there was no greater supernatural power than me. … The themes of the stories I wrote in my youth were about the dilemma of transgressing the notion that everything was sacred.”

Following the uproar among offended Hindu fundamentalists, which included a hailstorm of death threats, local authorities provided Kalburgi with police security. Just weeks ago, Kalburgi requested the security be removed. He did not give a reason.

Kalburgi is the third opponent of spiritual superstition in India to be gunned down in the past three years.

Earlier this year, unknown attackers fatally shot Govind Pansare, noted writer, communist politician, and anti-superstition crusader in western India, while he was walking with his wife. In 2013, Narendra Dabholkar, a physician-turned-activist was slaughtered near Mumbai in broad daylight. Right-wing Hindu groups threatened Dabholkar for years in response to his lectures promoting rationalist thought and condemning superstition religious practices. Before his death, Dabholkar worked on legislation in western Maharashtra state to ban religious exploitation and fraudulent medical workers and spiritual healers.

Black magic, witchcraft, animal and human sacrifice are still associated with religious rites in some parts of India.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.