Last Tuesday was a terrible, difficult night, when news broke that outspoken Kannadiga journalist Gauri Lankesh had been murdered in Bengaluru. Lankesh was not in a conflict zone, or a riot, or a hostage crisis, or in any of the other dangerous situations that journalists often encounter. She was doing what working people do — coming home in the evening, parking, maybe fiddling with keys, maybe looking forward to some food and rest.

It was in this most banal of urban commuter moments that she was executed at point blank range. The impunity of the act is shocking. Should it ...