The former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday demanded the immediate suspension of the officers responsible for last week’s police firing in Mangaluru. He said they need to be booked appropriately and sent to jail.
“There is no need for an inquiry; it is a clear case of police atrocity,” Mr. Kumaraswamy told reporters after visiting the families of the two men who died in the firing violence and the injured persons in hospitals. He also demanded that Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa drop Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, “who has proved to be inefficient”.
The JD(S) leader said that having given permission on December 18 to two organisations to hold protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act the next day, the Dakshina Kannada district administration had imposed prohibitory orders at night, giving little room for the participants to return.
Mr. Kumaraswamy alleged that the police have been concocting stories of an attack on the police station and stone-pelting by protesters to justify their action. It was nothing but police brutality, he said, adding that eight “innocent victims” of the violence were undergoing treatment at a hospital.
He also said that there was no need to impose prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure at a time when protests against CAA were being held peacefully across the State. “There was no semblance of regret on the Chief Minister’s face when he spoke to the media during his Mangaluru visit. The government and the BJP are sadists, not the protesters. The government has virtually murdered the two innocent people,” he said.
Mr. Kumaraswamy also said that while the Commissioner of Police has claimed that there was a mob of 7,000 people on Thursday, the FIR says 1,500 people were there.
Cheques for kin of deceased
Mr. Kumaraswamy on Sunday handed over cheques for ₹5 lakh each to the families of Jalil and Nausheen, who were killed in Thursday’s police firing. He visited the bereaved families and consoled them before promising support from the party. Later, he told reporters that the JD(S) would bear the hospital expenses of the injured persons if the government failed to do so. “We will also work out their rehabilitation plans,” he said.
