Mangaluru: The Mangaluru police Saturday said the murder of Hindu activist Suhas Shetty was an act of retaliation and revenge, refuting rumours that gave the gruesome incident communal colour.
Mangaluru city Police Commissioner Anupam Agarwal said Shetty’s killing Thursday was result of “mixed motives”. Eight people have been arrested in the case—Abdul Safwan, Niaz, Mohammed Mussamir, Kalandar Shafi, Adil Mehroof, Nagaraj M., Mohammed Rizwan and Ranjit. Six are from Dakshina Kannada and two are from neighbouring Chikmagalur.
What is now emerging as a story of revenge actually began two years ago.
“Main accused Abdul Safwan was attacked by associates and friends of Suhas Shetty in 2023 and the case was listed in Surathkal. He (Safwan) was scared that Suhas might get him again and conspired with others to murder Suhas Shetty. He (Safwan) then met Adil, the brother of Fazil, who wanted to avenge his brother (Suhas Shetty was also the prime accused in the Fazil murder case). With similar intentions, they formed a team to get Shetty,” Agarwal said.
Adil is said to have funded Rs 5 lakh and helped orchestrate the entire plot, including bringing the other assailants on board.
Shetty (33), a rowdy-sheeter with ties to the Bajrang Dal, was hacked to death in full public view Thursday in the busy Kinnipadavu Cross locality of Mangaluru. Shetty’s murder is the latest in the long history of retaliatory killings that have plagued the communally sensitive coastal districts of Karnataka. What heightens communal tensions further in the region is the fact that warring sides are also often divided on religious lines—Muslims or Hindus.
With passions already running high after the Pahalgam terrorist attacks, police have turned the region into a fortress to prevent any communal flare-up. There is not a single stretch in the city without the presence of police. Police vehicles are patrolling with sirens blazing and most businesses have downed shutter.
In the two days since the murder and subsequent police investigation and arrests, there have been three knife attack incident. At least one of the victims is badly hurt.
An incident during a cricket match
The Mangaluru city has become a tinder box of sorts since the alleged lynching of 35-year-old Kerala resident Ashraf in the Kudupu locality last Saturday. Ashraf was lynched during a cricket match by a group of individuals who slapped him, kicked him and thrashed him with sticks for allegedly chanting pro-Pakistan slogans.
These claims have so far been refuted by the Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara and the Mangaluru city police. The police were on high alert since the incident, but the city continued to function normal. That changed Thursday evening though, when Shetty was killed.
While Ashraf’s lynching barely scratched the coastal town’s conscience, Shetty’s murder has the entire region on the edge with the right-wing groups rallying in anger. Security personnel fear that Shetty’s brutal killing will trigger another spate of tit-for-tat murders, like in July 2022.
Prohibitory orders will remain in place in Mangaluru and surrounding areas.
Fazil’s murder
On 19 July 2022, 19-year-old Masood B was attacked by unidentified people and he died two days later in a hospital. His death did not make big news but there were those who wanted a revenge.
A week later, on July 26, bike-borne assailants hacked to death Praveen Nettaru, a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BYJM) worker, fuelling tensions. The ruling BJP was unable to give an explanation.
In anger and vengeance, Shetty chose a target—randomly.
Twenty-three-old Fazil was killed the next day by masked attackers in the busy Mangalpete locality of Surathkal in the northern part of the coastal district. Adil is Fazil’s brother. Shetty was the main accused in the murder case.
With Shetty now dead, Adil has avenged Fazil, police said, in what adds to the long list of retaliatory killings in the region. Shetty had five other cases against him including at least one other murder case.
Most of the assailants, who fatally attacked Shetty have criminal antecedents, including cases of dacoity, the police said.
After coming together, the group meticulously followed Shetty and his every movement. On Thursday, three people in a Maruti Swift followed him and his four friends. Two other attackers waited at a nearby road in a Bolero pickup truck.
As soon as Shetty drove past, the Bolero rammed his vehicle and most of the occupants could not flee since the doors were jammed. Shetty somehow came out and tried to flee but was chased by the assailants and videos captured on mobile phones show he was hacked multiple times. The assailants then fled in their Swift car, changed vehicles after a distance and tried to leave town.
All eight have been apprehended.
‘Sleeper cells’
The road to Belthangady from the Mangaluru airport was deserted Friday with police stationed at every village or intersection. Only a few vehicles moved around. Just off the highway between Belthangady and Charmadi is Karnja, which houses the famous Sri Karinjeshwara Temple.
Clad in saffron stoles, hundreds walked the hilly gravel road, braving sweltering heat and making their way to Pullimajal—Shetty’s ancestral home. Several politicians and pro-Hindutva leaders stood by as the family performed the last rites in an open ground next to Shetty’s modest home.
Among them was Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shobha Karandlaje, a native of the region and one of the loudest pro-Hindutva voices from Karnataka. According to Karandlaje, “sleeper cells” of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) remain active and were responsible for the attack.
“The Union government banned the organisation but the people (its members) are still alive, and their sleeper cells are very active in places like Mangaluru, Kasargod, Bhatkal…,” Karandlaje told ThePrint.
Shetty’s family members too believe this even though the assailants are yet to be identified.
Karandlaje said the assailants appeared trained—“like those given (training) in Syria and the Taliban”—to know exactly where to strike.
About a 100 metres further down the gravel road at Shetty’s grandmother’s home, his distraught parents sat as leaders took turns to offer their condolences. “Suhas took care of his mother’s cancer-related expenses. Now, we don’t know what to do,” said one relative to Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, the senior BJP leader.
As soon as he left, Karandlaje and C.T. Ravi made their way inside.
According to the family, the police had asked Shetty to deposit all his weapons a week ago, which he supposedly carried with him for self-defence. “My son could take on four-five people easily. But how could he when he did not have anything with him?” asked his father.
Shetty’s uncle Ramesh Bhandari said that both these possibilities—Shetty being killed in retaliation for Fazil’s death or the PFI targeting him—could be right. “It is possibly a retaliation. But he was going to become the next big Hindu leader in the district. It could be that he would become a big leader and this may turn difficult for them (PFI) and they could have done this,” he told ThePrint.
Since Shetty’s killing, there have been at least two attacks on Muslim individuals in different parts of the district. Pro-Hindu groups allegedly attacked three Muslim beedi sellers when they got caught in the crowd outside the hospital where Shetty’s body was kept.
Local residents said they have had enough of such attacks and counter-attacks. “We are fed up,” said Felix, an auto driver in Mangaluru. “We don’t know who is behind what, but it’s all politics and our lives (livelihood) are caught in between.”
In Ashraf’s case, eyewitnesses and the police say, there is no evidence that he said “Pakistan Zindabad”. They add the assailants made that story up to justify their actions.
Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada—the three communally sensitive coastal districts—are ranked among the top five in the state in terms of human development index.
Karnataka recorded at least 107 communal incidents between 2020 and 2023, according to the state government. Of these, 72 were reported from just five districts—Shivamogga, Davanagere, Uttara Kannada, Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada—that make up most of the state’s communal cauldron.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: Coastal Karnataka on edge as murder accused ‘Hindu activist’ hacked to death in Mangaluru
What tit-for-tat are you referring to Mr. Sharan Poovanna?
India was partitioned in 1947 on the basis of religion. Muslims got Pakistan. They can all migrate to their fantasyland – “land of the pure” – and do whatever they wish.
India belongs to non-Muslims. Muslims have no business claiming rights and privileges in India.
Coastal Karnataka has veen deeply influenced by Wahaabi and Salafi strains of Islam. As a result it has become a hotbed of jihadi militancy. Entire India knows about the town of Bhatkal and it’s infamous residents. Such anti-national jihadi terrorists have absolutely no place in India. The state and union governments must work in tandem to identify, prosecute and convict all such criminals.