Bengaluru, Oct 2 (HT): Actor Prakash Rai has threatened to return his five National Awards and condemned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on certain sections “celebrating” the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh on social media.

“Gauri’s killers have not been caught yet. But what is more disappointing is people celebrating her murder over social media spreading hatred,” Raj said on Sunday speaking at the 11th state meet of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) held in Bengaluru.

“Some of these people who celebrated her (Gauri’s) murder are followed by our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) on Twitter. We have a PM who shuts his eyes to this,” he said.

Immediately hitting out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Raj said, “When you look at the kind of statements he (Adityanath) makes, you don’t understand whether he’s a Chief Minister or a priest. He (Adityanath) is a better actor than me. I think I must give out all my five national awards to him.”

Clarifying Raj’s statement, Muneer Katipalla, the state president of DYFI said, “It was only a satirical comment that Prakash Raj made referring to how Adityanath was trying to act like a Chief Minister.” Raj, however, did not respond to attempts by IANS to contact him to verify if he really plans to return his national awards.

Raj had voiced his opinion after Lankesh’s murder too. “I knew Gauri for 30 years. In a sense, we were all children of (P) Lankesh, his ideologies and way of life. I never dreamt that this day would come. We were taught to be honest citizens, who would never seize to raise one’s voice. In fact, I don’t think anyone voiced their opinion more than P Lankesh himself. This was how we were taught to be. It is astonishing to see where we have come to today,” he had told Times of India.