Bengaluru: Karnataka Police Thursday arrested Rama Sene leader Prasad Attavar and 13 workers of the Right-wing group who attacked a salon in Mangaluru, accusing its staff of indulging in “immoral activities”. The incident has raised fears of an increase in vigilante attacks in the communally sensitive coastal district.
According to a statement by Mangaluru City Police, at around 11:51 am, a group of 11 men unlawfully entered Colors Unisex Salon, located near Aditya Complex, in the Bijai locality, where they proceeded to cause “significant damage to the property”. The group also verbally abused the staff and threatened them with harm.
Attavar, who also participated in the 2009 Mangaluru pub moral policing attack, told reporters that his group was behind Thursday’s incident, claiming that girls were being pushed into prostitution at the salon.
It was not immediately clear if Attavar himself participated in the attack.
Videos from the incident that shared widely on social media show members of the Right-wing group arguing with the staff and smashing equipment and furniture inside the salon.
Police swung into action, arresting a defiant Attavar from Mangaluru. He said that he would fight the cases against him “legally”.
“There was prostitution going on there. Nobody will attack them without reason,” he told Mangaluru reporters earlier.
In an interview with Public TV Thursday, Attavar further said that he had every right to attack the salon since he was “looking out for the safety and well-being of young women”.
“We had information that 15-16-year-old college girls were being pushed into prostitution. They may be Hindu, Muslim, Christian or other faiths. But this is happening in that place (salon),” he told the Kannada news channel. “We don’t know what the police are doing so our workers attacked them.”
Karnataka Minister for Home Affairs G. Parameshwara told reporters Thursday that such incidents should not happen in the state. “They should have complained if there was some illegal activity taking place. But this doesn’t mean taking the law into your own hands.”
The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has been under pressure over a spate of incidents over the past two weeks, with the Opposition claiming “lawlessness” in Karnataka.
Also Read: In Karnataka’s Mangaluru, ‘Hindutva warriors’ want to swap rowdy vigilantism for votes
Links to Sri Rama Sena
Prasad Attavar founded Rama Sene after splitting from the Pramod Muthalik-led Sri Rama Sena over internal differences in 2013. In January of that year, workers of the Right-wing group, including Attavar, barged into Amnesia-The Lounge in Mangalore and assaulted men and women, accusing them of violating Indian values. Visuals of young students being beaten up were played on a loop across TV networks, propelling Sri Rama Sena into infamy across the country. In 2018, all accused in the incident were acquitted.
In 2014, Muthalik joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but went back on his decision hours later in the face of protests from various quarters. He contested the 2023 assembly elections from Karnataka’s Karkala, securing just over 4,500 votes as an Independent.
His electoral defeats notwithstanding, Muthalik gained notoriety with his inflammatory public speeches, especially one he made in 2021 in Gadag, where he said that he backed demands to excavate mosques across Karnataka and even India.
According to a 2013 interview with Daijiworld, Attavar stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Muthalik for nearly six years and was with the Bajrang Dal before that. In the interview, he said that the 2009 pub attack propelled Sri Rama Sena into the national spotlight and that it was given a communal spin but the issue of safety and protection of women was buried.
“The pub attack did not focus on communal lines, only the protection of girls, be it Hindus, Muslims or Christians,” he told the Mangaluru-based news portal. “After such incidents, attacks, and even after sending memorandums to the state government, we can still find some pubs functioning across the city.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
Also Read: Feud brewing over CM’s chair? Amid Siddaramaiah camp’s ‘dinner politics’, Shivakumar turns to prayer