Bangalore, Aug. 30: A former Karnataka minister and Dalit writer has received a death threat for defending cow slaughter and dismissing portrayals of the cow as mother.

"I received the letter a few days ago at my Bangalore address. It said that people like me should be killed for supporting cow slaughter," B.T. Lalitha Naik, 71, told The Telegraph from Dharwad today.

Naik had travelled to the north Karnataka town for an event to mark the first death anniversary of assassinated "rationalist" scholar M.M. Kalburgi.

"The letter referred to my recent statement criticising the activities of gau rakshaks (cow protectors) and dismissing their argument that the cow is our mother," Naik, a Karnataka Sahitya Academy award winner, said.

She said the letter had been posted in Udupi, south Karnataka, where cow vigilantes recently lynched a local BJP member who was transporting calves. The letter's writer gave his name as Sunil Sharma, she added.

"I've decided to lodge a formal police complaint when I return tomorrow," she said.

Naik, a socialist follower of Jaya Prakash Narayan, had been minister for Kannada, culture and women's welfare in the mid-1990s as part of J.H. Patel's Janata Dal government.

About a month ago, she received an anonymous letter abusing her for supporting an anti-superstition bill pending with the Karnataka Assembly.

That letter didn't make any death threats. "It just abused me in Kannada," Naik said.

Around the same time, an anonymous caller abused her over her stand on cow slaughter. "I just dismissed it as some desperado trying to bully me. But this one (the latest letter) is a serious matter," she said.

Naik has variously been part of the Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), Janata Party and the Welfare Party of India and lost the 2014 general election on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket.

She had left the Janata Dal (Secular) protesting H.D. Deve Gowda's decision to form a coalition government with the BJP in 2006.

After cow vigilantes attacked a Dalit family in Chikmagalur last month, Naik had spoken out against such violence early this month.

"I had said the cow was just another domestic animal that gave milk and provided meat for the poor, and that there was nothing wrong if it was slaughtered to feed hungry people," Naik said. "I have always said that humans are more important than animals."

The Dalit Sangarsh Samiti (Ambekarvada) has condemned the threat to Naik.

Mahesh Chandra Guru, a Mysore University professor who was arrested recently for allegedly insulting Ram, urged the state government to provide police security to Naik.