Months after registering a case against a school in Kalladka, Dakshina Kannada, after its students re-enacted the demolition of the Babri Masjid as part of its Sports Day programmes, the Karnataka Police is yet to file a chargesheet against the accused. The cops are now seeking legal opinion as the students who enacted the play are minors. In December 2019, the students of Sri Rama Vidyakendra High School in Dakshina Kannada’s Kalladka is owned by Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, who is a member of the south-central regional executive committee of the RSS, re-enacted the demolition of the Babri Masjid. A video clip of the play went viral on social media. On the basis of a complaint filed by a Popular Front of India (PFI) leader, Aboobacker Siddique, the police registered a case and booked our people, including Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, who are all governing body members of the Sri Rama Vidyakendra High School. But now the police are seeking legal opinion for further proceedings in the case. Speaking to Indianexpress.com, Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police B M Laxmi Prasad, said, “We are recording witness statements, and we have sent the video footage to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to check the veracity of the video. Now we are taking legal opinion from experts on proceeding with filing the chargesheet since all those who enacted the sequences were children.” In the video, more than a hundred students, dressed in white shirts and saffron dhotis and holding saffron flags, are seen rushing towards a poster of the Babri Masjid as the narrator describes the event on a loudspeaker. The narrator in Kannada says: “They demolish the structure with anything they can get their hands on. With enthusiasm, Hanuman bhaktas with Hanuman’s anger, demolish the Babri structure.” When the narrator says ‘Bolo Shri Ramachandra ki Jai!, Bharath Mata ki, Jai!’, the poster of the Babri Masjid has been brought down by students. At this point, students and audience members start cheering. Present in the audience were Puducherry Governor Kiran Bedi, Union minister for chemicals and fertilisers DV Sadananda Gowda, Karnataka Minister for Women and Child Welfare Shashikala Jolle and other political leaders, who had been invited as guests to the school’s annual ‘Kreedotsava’.
