Bajrang Dal members stop party at Mangaluru pub: A string of moral policing instances in Karnataka

The latest case is one in a series of moral policing incidents in Karnataka recently.

Last year, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had come under fire when his reply to a question on incidents of moral policing was seen as an endorsement of acts of moral policing by vigilante groups. “When sentiments are hurt, there will normally be action and reaction. The responsibility of the government apart from maintaining law and order is to preserve social harmony. Everyone must cooperate. Some youths need to ensure that the sentiments of their society are not hurt. This is a social issue and we need morality in society,” Bommai had stated.

Meanwhile, state Home Minister Araga Jnanendra had said in the legislative Assembly that the Karnataka Police has been given a free hand to deal with incidents of communal trouble and moral policing in the state and the BJP government is not protecting anyone.

Here are some of the incidents of moral policing reported in Karnataka:

In April, miscreants waylaid a Muslim youth and his Hindu girlfriend while they were travelling in an auto-rickshaw. The incident was reported in Dakshina Kannada district. According to police sources, 21-year-old Nazeer of Puttu was traveling with his girlfriend in an auto-rickshaw. Around noon, three miscreants waylaid the auto-rickshaw near Siribagilu village on the Mangaluru-Bengaluru national highway and assaulted him on finding out their identities.

Seven persons were arrested in December last year in two separate incidents of moral policing in coastal Karnataka.

In Mangaluru, the police arrested four persons for allegedly harassing two students of a private college while they were travelling on a bus. The victims, a boy and a girl, belong to different faiths.

In Udupi district, the Manipal police arrested three persons in another incident of moral policing. The police said the accused Sanjay Kumar, Pranesh and Vinuth Poojary from Parkala attacked Altaf (27) of Saligrama whom they spotted with a friend at Mannapalla lake. Cops said the woman, who is Altaf’s neighbour, belonged to a different faith. Altaf and his friend, sources said, had visited the Deputy Commissioner’s office for some work and had stopped by the lake later when they were attacked.

Police in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka arrested two persons for allegedly abusing two Hindu women. According to the police sources, Geetha and her friend Manjula, Hindu women from Karkala in the Udupi district, were travelling on a two-wheeler to a Hanuman temple in Moodbidri in October last year. On the way, they met their friend Soudha, a Muslim woman and her husband Ashraf. Since they were on the same way, Soudha and Ashraf offered to drop Geetha and Manjula at the temple. They parked their scooters and boarded the car, said the police. Around 10.30 am, six to eight persons on bikes came and stopped their vehicle, said the police. They asked Geetha and Manjula to get down from the vehicle and abused them for boarding a car belonging to a Muslim. They also abused Ashraf for taking them in the car, said the police.

Around the same time, in Shivamogga district, two Muslim men were arrested for allegedly manhandling a Hindu youth for dropping a Muslim girl on his two-wheeler. The incident took place when a Muslim girl of Majjigenahalli, 14km away from Shivamogga town, requested a youth from her village to drop her at her workplace as it was getting late. He dropped the girl and noticing this, the Muslim men assaulted him.

September 2021 alone saw at least five incidents of moral policing. A Hindu man who was dropping his Muslim woman colleague home on his two-wheeler was stopped and assaulted in Bengaluru by two men who questioned why she was travelling with a man from a different faith. The men, who were later arrested by the police, forced the woman to get off and take an auto rickshaw home.

In another incident in the same month, six second-year MBBS students driving back from Malpe beach were stopped at Surathkal checkpost. The accused asked their names and questioned the women for “being in the company of Muslims”. The activists then proceeded to manhandle the students, when traffic inspector Sharif – who happened to be at the spot – defused the situation and sent them away. Five members of a right-wing outfit were arrested in the case.

In the second week of September, a Bengaluru-based woman and her colleagues were attacked in Dakshina Kannada district’s Puttur for talking to a Muslim man. Around the same time, a Muslim woman and a Hindu man, who is her colleague, were attacked in Bengaluru for travelling together on a bike while returning from work. Two persons were later arrested in the case.

At Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada district, six paramedical students were attacked by a five-member gang upon their visit to Karinja temple. Three of them were arrested on charges of wrongfully restraining the students and attacking them just because they belonged to different communities.

Actress Samyuktha Hegde had alleged on September 4, 2020 that Congress leader Kavitha Reddy tried to attack and abuse her and her friends for doing a hula-hooping workout at a park wearing workout clothes. Reddy tendered an unconditional apology a few days later.