Writers hurt by Akademi's silence on killings: Giriraj Kishore

Kanpur: Noted Hindi writer Giriraj Kishore on Thursday registered his protest over the killing of Kannada writer Professor M M Kalburgi and said the community of writers is hurt by the silence of Sahitya Akademi on such incidents.

"The Akademi should think seriously about the safety of writers and also draw Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attention towards the matter," Kishore said in a statement.

Asking the writers' fraternity to resist any attempt to curb the autonomy of the Akademi, he said that they should preserve the "colour of the Akademi and not allow it to be saffronised".

He said that writer Nayantara Sahgal and poet Ashok Vajpeyi's decision to return their literary honours was a reaction to government's apathy towards such incidents.

Sahgal and Vajpeyi returned their awards voicing displeasure over the Dadri lynching incident and a string of killings of rationalists while questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence on these.