Pramod Muthalik's claim to fame was the alleged involvement of his group, Sri Rama Sene, in the 2009 pub attack in Mangaluru in Karnataka, in which young women and other patrons of a pub in that city were chased out in a show of moral policing. Mr Muthalik and his team were acquitted in that case. Now, he has made a provocative statement on the killing of Bengaluru journalist Gauri Lankesh. "No one questioned the Congress government's failure... instead these Left-leaning intellectuals ask PM Modi to speak on Gauri Lankesh's death. Do you expect Modi to respond every time a dog dies in Karnataka?" he said.