A brawl, a bandh, and 2 FIRs: Why Karnataka court refused to stop police probe

After the owners were arrested, the groups called a Puttur bandh on August 25 demanding the customers’ arrest.

The fight at the store

The incident at Dream Destination Jana Seva Kendra, a photocopy store and travel agency in Puttur town, occurred on August 21 when homemaker Fathimath Miswan, 32, found that her child’s birth certificate, which she had given for lamination, had been returned damaged by the store staff.

A verbal and physical fight ensued between Miswan and her brother, Mubaris, and the store owners, Anjana Pai and her son Sudarshan Pai, with Sudarshan allegedly assaulting Mubaris.

The incident resulted in a complaint and a counter-complaint. The police registered an attempt to murder case against the store owners, and booked the customers for intentional insult and criminal intimidation.

Following the registration of the rival complaints, right-wing groups in Puttur demanded more serious action by the police against the customers.

On August 23, the Puttur town police registered another FIR linked to the incident against Dinesh Panjiga, an activist of the Hindu Jagaran Vedike, for threatening on social media to stage protests for the arrest of the customers involved in the fight.

Two of the cases reached the Karnataka High Court last week even as right-wing groups observed a Puttur bandh on August 25 and held protests on August 26 and August 31. While Anjana and Sudarshan questioned the invoking of the attempt to murder charge in the high court, Panjiga questioned the suo motu police FIR for his social media call for protests.

What the two sides argued

On September 1, state Special Public Prosecutor B N Jagadeesh argued in the high court that the incident “with regard to a document that was damaged in a Xerox shop…had nothing to do with any religion”.

“The entire incident has been given a communal colour, and yesterday there was a protest and a bandh was called earlier. The FIR was registered after a preliminary inquiry was conducted and not prior to that,” he argued.

The CCTV footage at the shop shows the incident, Jagadeesh said. “The accused has a prior history of assaults. He is not an innocent person. It has nothing to do with religion,” he added.

The senior counsel for the store owners and the social media activist, Aruna Shyam, argued that police had not invoked the attempt to murder section against the customers but only invoked it in the complaint against the owners.

“The investigation is going one-sided,” Shyam argued while seeking the quashing of the attempt to murder charge against the store owners.

What the court said

On September 1, the Karnataka High Court refused to stop investigations in the cases over the store fight. “I deem it appropriate to allow investigations to go on in both cases,” Justice M Nagaprasanna said, disposing of the store owner’s challenge of the FIR.

“The Xerox shop thing has created a lot of stir. It is not correct. Let there be an investigation in both cases,” the judge said. “When the matter was sub judice, why was a bandh called?” he observed.

The high court, however, granted interim protection against arrest to Panjiga over the August 23 social media call for protests against Muslims over the incident.