How ‘Hanuman Chalisa’, ‘Azaan’ dropped out of Nagarathpet narrative

Prakash Gowda | NT

Bengaluru: A shopkeeper was beaten up by a mob at his mobile accessories store in Bengaluru’s Nagarathpet on March 19 and the assault immediately took on a communal colour in the media narrative but the same is being challenged with the passage of time.

The shopkeeper Mukesh alleged that the youth, most of whom belonged to a minority community, had beaten him up because he had played ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ loudly during ‘Azaan’ or the Muslim call for prayer.

The next day a host of BJP leaders and workers descended on the locality and staged a protest against the alleged antiHindu motive of the assault.

BJP MPs Tejasvi Surya, Shobha Karandlaje, PC Mohan, the local saffron party MLA Uday Garudachar and others had showed up.

The saffron party leaders blamed the ruling Congress’ “appeasement” politics for the allegedly deteriorating law and order situation.

Surya and Karandlaje also had a case slapped against them over “illegal protest” and “hate speech”.

No communal motives?

However, as passions recede and facts come to light, there is reason to believe that it was an interpersonal conflict and not a communal one.

For instance, the written complaint by Mukesh himself makes no mention of either ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ or ‘Azaan’. Moreover, FIRs mention both Muslim and Hindu accused persons.

Apparently, one of the youths had asked Mukesh for a pair of earphones a while ago but requested that he be allowed to pay later. However, the shopkeeper refused to give him the earphones, leading to an argument.

Locals confirmed this friction. Since the assault, five arrests have been made. It is also to be noted that the CCTV footage from the shop, which had been leaked online, doesn’t appear to show an altercation over loud music.

The clip does however show some seven youths gathered near the shop. They first argued with and then two of them beat up Mukesh.

Local BJP MLA downplays incident

On March 20, Chickpet MLA Uday Garudachar tried to downplay the incident in an exclusive interview to News 18 Kannada, saying that it had been blown out of proportion.

“It’s my constituency. I’m aware of everything. What has happened ought not to have reached the level it did,” Garudachar said.

However, he defended his party’s protest on the issue. “What happened is an innocent youth who ran a small shop was beaten up by several people. Why? For no reason. They are from another community. You can observe that this is the election season. Circumstances are excitable. What can be done about it?” he asked.

When pressed about the fact that Hindu youths had also been named in the FIR, Garudachar said: “I’m an absolute secular person. Everyone should flourish. People are born in different communities. Everyone should live in harmony. This is what happened but this (incident) has gone out of hand.”

He said that he trusted the police department’s handling of the case. He said he had asked Surya to not “precipitate the issue”, adding that the MP had agreed.