4 men arrested over questioning Hindu woman for ‘talking to a Muslim’ in Mangaluru

On her way, the woman got off in Mangaluru to congratulate a friend who had recently won a literary award, according to the complaint. At around 4.50 pm, a group of local men waylaid them at Panambur beach and started talking to the two in a threatening tone.

“It is wrong for a Hindu woman to speak to a Muslim in Mangaluru, and we have the right to question it,” the accused allegedly told them.

Subsequently, the police arrived at the scene and detained the four youths. They were booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint and intentional insult to provoke.

In a statement, the city police said additional staff will be deputed in tourist areas such as Panambur beach, Tannirbhavi beach and Tree Park to prevent such incidents.

The police commissionerate in Mangaluru was the first to establish an ‘anti-communal wing’ in Karnataka last year to combat moral policing and handle cases related to communal violence. Cases of moral policing are regularly reported from the coastal city and surrounding regions.

On July 27, 2023, two men were arrested after they assaulted a police constable and abused his wife as they were walking home in BC Road township in Dakshina Kannada. The assailants thought that the constable Hanumantappa Kumar was a Muslim and questioned him for “walking with a Hindu woman at around 10 pm”, despite Kumar’s attempts to convince them that the woman was his wife.

On July 29, another case was reported in which a journalist and his woman friend were verbally abused while they were leaving a restaurant.