Hubballi: From the entrance gate of Hubballi city till the quaint little neighbourhood of Bidnal, there is not a single lighting pole that does not have a poster with “Justice to Neha Niranjan Hiremath” written on it. It has a young woman’s smiling picture.
Neha, a 23-year-old student and daughter of Congress corporator Niranjan Hiremath, was stabbed to death, allegedly by her former classmate, on the premises of her college in Dharwad on 18 April, sparking widespread protests. The accused is a 23-year-old college dropout, Fayaz Khondunaik, who is alleged to have been in a relationship with her.
At Neha’s house in Hubballi, which ThePrint visited Sunday, a shamiana (tent) has been set up to seat the media, police, political leaders and well-wishers who have been pouring in ever since she was killed.
Niranjan Hiremath mostly stays home and has not had a moment to himself as state and national political leaders visit to express their condolences.
He obliges every single request for an on-camera byte, ensures all those who visit his home are fed, and greets everyone in person. There is even a setup for political leaders to address the media.
While the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) and a fast-track court to probe Neha’s murder, the killing has become a flashpoint in the state, intensifying the ongoing Lok Sabha election campaign.
“In Hubballi, our daughter… what happened to her on the college campus shook the entire country. That child’s family kept demanding action but the Congress government kept prioritising appeasement (of Muslims). For them (Congress), there is no value of daughters like Neha, but they are thinking about their vote bank,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a crowd at an election rally Sunday in Belagavi, about 90 km away from Hubballi.
Hubballi has had its share of communal tensions and is crucial to understanding the rise of the Hindutva movement in Karnataka. A movement to unfurl the tricolour in Hubballi’s Idgah Maidan and a decision by Hindutva groups to set up a Ganesha pandal on the ground have been sources of tension in these parts.
The twin cities of Hubballi-Dharwad go to the polls on 7 May.
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‘Impact on Congress’s prospects’
Two days after the murder, Mumtaz, Khondunaik’s mother, told the media that her son was in a relationship with Neha. She was trying to dispel claims that the girl was killed for rejecting Fayaz’s advances.
“Both of them were in love and I knew about it a year ago,” Mumtaz told reporters. She added that as Neha distanced herself from Khondunaik, her son went into depression and the family knew nothing about his mental state.
Neha was stabbed repeatedly by Khondunaik on the college campus. While he was arrested the same day, Hiremath says he “will not rest until he (Khondunaik) is hanged”.
Ever since the murder, Khondunaik’s family members have avoided contact with people and have not been seen in Munavalli, about 70 km from Hubballi, where they hail from, say the locals. Villagers and officials also refused to speak a word about the incident, fearing consequences.
Neha’s family has maintained that she and Khondunaik were acquaintances and nothing more, rejecting Mumtaz’s claims.
“Let us assume they were in a relationship … that doesn’t mean our child can be killed for not wanting to continue it,” a close aide of Hiremath, requesting not to be named, told ThePrint.
When asked about the murder, most people in Hubballi remain tight-lipped, though many stop near Hiremath’s house and spend a few minutes discussing the incident among themselves.
Though there are varying versions of the relationship between the two, the killing has given the opposition BJP ammunition to attack the Siddaramaiah government over “appeasement”.
A Muslim Congress worker from the region told ThePrint that the issue has tilted the scales in favour of the BJP’s Pralhad Joshi, the sitting MP from the Dharwad Lok Sabha seat.
“There has been an impact on the Congress’ prospects in the election. The momentum Vinod (Asooti, Congress candidate) had has come down now,” he said, requesting anonymity.
Political analysts, too, said Neha’s killing has become a source of political capital for the BJP to consolidate votes in the region.
Ever since Neha’s killing, there have been at least two other cases involving a Muslim man and a Hindu girl in the region and there has been an attempt to link them with the “conspiracy” around Neha’s murder.
The BJP has been unrelenting in pinning the blame on the Congress for allegedly emboldening anti-Hindu sentiments but the former party is facing questions in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada, about 360 km away from Hubballi.
Sunil Bajilakeri, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Mangaluru, said the BJP drums up these murders only during elections, trying to stoke communal tensions to gain politically.
“In Soujanya’s case (a young woman whose 2012 murder has remained unsolved), they have covered it up and don’t speak about it. Recently, a girl called Neha (Hiremath) was murdered in Hubballi and they are taking this up vigorously only for the elections. After the polls, they (BJP leaders) will not even go to their homes… there are many such examples,” he told ThePrint.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to visit Neha’s family later this week.
‘Love jihad’
In 2018, the BJP kicked off its Karnataka assembly election campaign with an emphasis on killings of Hindus between 2013 and 2018 under the previous Siddaramaiah-led government.
At a poll rally, the BJP displayed a tableau which had three persons with beards hacking a man, while another person was seen killing a cow, making not-so-subtle references to Muslims. A mannequin with Siddaramaiah’s face mask sat on a chair as if just watching the killings.
The messaging was obvious — that ‘Hindus are not safe’ under the Congress government.
In the run-up to the 2018 polls, BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje had also posted a list of 23 “pro-Hindu” workers allegedly killed by “jihadists”. Some of these people were found to be still alive and at least one of them allegedly died by suicide.
In 2024, the BJP has retained this theme, emphasising crimes involving Muslims to target the Congress, led by PM Modi himself.
The PM and BJP leaders are further drumming up the killing of Neha as a case of ‘love jihad’, while also bringing up other incidents like the Rameshwaram Cafe blast in Bengaluru this March and the alleged raising of pro-Pakistan slogans by supporters of a winning Congress candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections.
Hiremath, too, has said that his daughter’s killing is part of a larger conspiracy even as several outfits have taken out protest marches and candlelight vigils.
“All those involved in this (conspiracy) must come out. By putting just one man behind bars… who were the people with him… unless we get to the root of this, there is no meaning,” Purushotham Agarwal, a business partner of Hiremath, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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