After combing forests for years, half of Karnataka’s anti-naxal force to fight communal trouble in urban jungles

Parameshwara proposed the creation of the anti-communal task force to prevent communal disturbances in the wake of the murder of right-wing gangster Suhas Shetty, 32, in Mangaluru on May 1.

Shetty, who has eight crimes, including murders, against his name, was the main accused in the July 2022 murder of Mohammed Fazil, 23, in Surathkal near Mangaluru. Fazil’s murder was seen as a retaliation for the murder of BJP youth leader Praveen Nettaru by members of the now-banned Popular Front of India.

The new anti-communal task force is expected to be tasked with tracking communal gangsters and groups. The force will operate across the state and will not be restricted to coastal Karnataka, where the communal divide is seen as a major social problem that is beyond the control of the police, sources said.

In the past, communal murder cases in Karnataka, especially those of right-wing leaders, have been referred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), allegedly following pressure from the BJP and allies.

There has been a demand by the BJP to hand over the Shetty murder case to the NIA, but the Karnataka Congress government has indicated the criminal record of the gangster to suggest that the case is linked to rivalries between gangsters, rather than terrorists.

The NIA, which is apprehensive of the banned PFI continuing to operate in the coastal regions of Karnataka, has not obtained legal clearances as yet to question the people arrested by the Mangaluru police in the Suhas Shetty murder case.

The proposal for the anti-communal task force will also essentially help the Karnataka Police protect jobs in the department and prevent the slashing of police budgets by the state financial department through the disbanding of the ANF, senior police officers said.

“The new anti-communal force will be created by utilising half the personnel allotted to the ANF. The new unit will work primarily in urban areas in the state and not in the forests like the ANF. They will report to the state police chief instead of the internal security department as done earlier for the ANF. The modalities are still being worked out,” a senior officer said.

“The main task of crime prevention and investigation will remain with the jurisdictional police, and the special force will be used in cases that are communal in nature,” a source said.

Parameshwara said this week that the anti-communal task force would also look at cases of moral policing and promotion of enmity between communities. “If it (moral policing) is only a social problem, the regular police will address it, but if it is communal in nature and can result in communal issues, then it will be entrusted to the anti-communal force,” Parameshwara said on May 7.

Earlier, the Karnataka police department was hoping to retain the services of the entire 670-member ANF to ensure that the vacuum created by the end to the anti-Naxal operations is not filled by a new set of armed Maoist forces that move from regions in the north of India following strong measures taken by paramilitary and police forces.

However, following pressures from within the government, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah announced in his budget in March this year that the state ANF will be disbanded.

“Six underground Naxals have surrendered before the Naxal surrender and rehabilitation programme committee. With this, Karnataka has become Naxal-free, and hence Anti-Naxal Force will be disbanded. The surrendered Naxals will be brought to the social mainstream, and to provide basic facilities in the Naxal-affected areas, a special package of Rs 10 crore will be formulated,” Siddaramaiah said in March.

The move to disband the ANF, however, was perceived as a reduction in the number of jobs in the police department, which would require fresh proposals and finance department clearances to replenish in the future. “It is easy to dismantle a force but difficult to create one with the kind of training and expertise of the ANF,” a senior police officer said.

The Karnataka government spent ₹150 crore on salaries of the ANF from 2018 to early 2025, according to a legislature reply by the home minister.

In the aftermath of Shetty’s murder, it was decided to propose the creation of an anti-communal task force using ANF members, police sources said. The move will reportedly not require any major government approvals, including budgetary clearance.

Earlier this year, on January 8, six Naxals, Mundagaru Latha, 45, Sundari Kuthlur, 40, Vanajakshi B, 55, Marappa Aroli alias Jayanna, 49, Jisha, 34, and Ramesh alias Vasanth, 38 surrendered before Siddaramaiah in Bengaluru. A seventh Naxal, Kotehunda Ravi, 45, surrendered a month later. They are considered the last of the armed Naxals in Karnataka.