Mumbai, Feb. 18 -- Ten years ago, on February 16, 2015, writer and trade union activist Govind Pansare and his wife Uma were walking back from their breakfast at a local shop near their Kolhapur home when two bike-borne men overtook them and opened fire at the couple. Pansare died of his injuries four days later at Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital while his wife was left partially paralysed.

Pansare's death followed the assassination of fellow rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune on August 20, 2013, and was followed by the murders, in a similar fashion, of Sahitya Akademi Award winner MM Kalburgi at Dharwad on August 30, 2015 and writer publisher Gauri Lankesh at Bengaluru on September 5, 2017. These four assassinations in a span of five...