Mangaluru police arrested six persons allegedly involved in yet another case of moral policing of two students belonging to different religions at Idya village, near Surathkal, on Monday night.
The police gave their names as Prahalad, Prashant, Guru Prasad, Prateesh, Bharath, and Sukesh. They are all said to be activists of the Bajrang Dal.
According to the police, a II year BSc girl student from a college at Mukka had prepared to relocate from Mukka to an apartment at Idya on Monday. As it was 10 p.m., she decided to call her senior college mate Mohammed Yaseen for help in moving articles to the apartment.
When Yaseen stopped to fill petrol on the way, a few motorcycles started following them. The two students were waylaid just before they entered the apartment complex around 10.30 p.m.
After asking the name of Yaseen, the members of group abused him for moving with a woman from another faith. They slapped him and abused the girl and her mother. They reportedly touched the girl inappropriately and pushed her around, according to the complaint.
On being alerted by apartment residents, the police reached the spot and took the six activists into their custody. Two of these accused were sporting T-shirts of a popular food delivery firm.
Based on a complaint by Yaseen, the six arrested persons were booked for offences under various sections of Indian Penal Code. The police said the action taken by them was as per the recent directions of the Supreme Court on vigilante attacks.
The moral policing incident on Monday night is the seventh one reported since September in Dakshina Kannada. While police sources said these incidents were to gain sympathy of a community in the run-up to the Assembly elections, Bajrang Dal activists said that local people were “reporting” more about movement of interfaith couple.
“For the last few days, we are getting more information from parents and other people,” claimed Vishwa Hindu Parishad Mangaluru divisional secretary Sharan Pumpwell. Activists try to “dissuade women falling into the trap” of persons from another faith, he said. “In this process there might be some heated exchange in some cases,” he said, and claimed activists were “falsely accused” of assaulting and harassing the victim woman at Idya.
