Bengaluru: The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trained its guns on the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government for attempting to review cases filed against people in cases relating to communal violence and protests across Karnataka.
Leading the attak was former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, who accused the Congress party of earlier taking the support of forces that were attempting to destabilise the country and now repaying the favour by dropping cases.
“We took strict action, and these riots could be controlled. There was involvement of international forces behind these incidents,” Bommai told reporters. “Because they (Congress) have taken support of all these elements in the election, they now have to repay them with such favours.”
The statements come days after Congress legislator Tanveer Sait wrote to Karnataka home minister G. Parameshwara, seeking his intervention to review cases in which several “innocents and students” were falsely incarcerated.
In his letter, Sait has referred to the riots in Bengaluru’s DJ Halli and KJ Halli on August 11 2020, the Shivamogga communal unrest in February 2022, and the Hubballi unrest in April last year.
“There may be MLAs or other organisations who keep giving letters and requests to take back cases, stating that there is no truth in the allegations. We have some procedures, whether it is the CM, home minister…there is a cabinet sub-committee under the home minister and all facts of the case, pros and cons are placed before it. And based on all these facts, the sub-committee can take a decision. Just because the HM or the CM writes a letter, the cases cannot be withdrawn…,” Parameshwara told reporters.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders such as Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya claim that all the above-mentioned riots were engineered by the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political affiliates like the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
Taking cue from PM Narendra Modi’s tirade against the opposition parties that have come together to take on the BJP, Surya gave a spin to the current situation by referring to the recent developments, including the arrest of five suspected terrorists.
In less than a week after Bengaluru Police arrested 5 suspected terrorists in the city, the State Congress Govt in Karnataka is dropping cases against terrorists accused in the DJ Halli & KJ Halli case where a police station and a Cong Dalit MLAs house was burnt to the ground.… pic.twitter.com/VkErTomeeE
— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) July 26, 2023
Meanwhile, the BJP and the Congress in Karnataka are also slugging it out over the proposal to drop cases as well as the Udupi hostel incident in which three girls allegedly filmed a fellow student inside the washroom.
On Tuesday, BJP leader N. Ravi Kumar claimed that the trio were Muslims who recorded a Hindu girl. “They (Muslim girls) sent the video to several groups,” he alleged.
Though the district police have said that the alleged video was not shared with any group, the BJP has insisted on a probe and accused the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government of trying to cover up the crime. The women’s wing of the BJP have threatened to go on a strike Thursday over the matter.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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