Are politicians taking society for a ride?

By Hameed Ashraf | NT

Amid the on-going rift between elected representatives of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Karnataka Police over the cause of the recent murder of Chandru, a 22-year-old youth in JJ Nagar in Bengaluru, people are eagerly waiting for the truth to come out.

Some of the State Ministers and BJP leaders had attempted to give the murder a communal colour when they stated that the youth was killed because he did not know Urudu. The police had denied this and stated that it was a case of road rage. This unnerved the BJP leaders who went on to call Bengaluru City Commissioner of Police a ‘liar’.

The case has since been handed over to the state Crime Investigation Department (CID).
The incident On April 4, Chandru and his friend Simon Raj were returning from a restaurant in Hosaguddadahalli at around 2.30 am. Their scooter accidentally brushed against a bike from the opposite direction. This led to a heated argument. The quarrel turned violent. In the melee, Chandru was stabbed on his thigh and the assailant fled.

“Chandru was then shifted to Victoria Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The three accused - Shahid Pasha, 21, Shahid Goli, 22, and one juvenile - were arrested in a matter of hours,” Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant had said.

An FIR was filed at the JJ Nagar police station. The police procured the CCTV footage of the incident and collected statements of the eye-witnesses.

Fake video
Chandru’s death soon grabbed public attention. A video clip began circulating on social media platforms which claimed that the attackers forced Chandru to speak in Urdu and that he was stabbed when he failed to obey their dictum. Later, the police clarified that it was a fake video.

The matter did not end here. On April 5, the state Home Minister Araga Jnanendra, told the media that according to his sources in JJ Nagar, Chandru, was stabbed for not speaking Urdu. However, Jnanendra was quick to retract his statement soon after the city police commissioner declared that the murder was triggered by a road rage.

Later, BJP MLC N Ravikumar and other BJP leaders swooped down on the City Police Commissioner accusing him of “lying” about the motive behind the murder.

Simon Raj, the friend of Chandru who was with him during the altercation, explained, “The biker questioned us in Urdu about us scolding him. We replied in Kannada that we did not scold him. Soon the motorcyclist and two others started attacking us with lethal weapons. I fled the spot and called Chandru over the phone. The calls went unanswered and hence I returned to the spot to find the trio attacking Chandru.”

Raj added that when they replied to the biker in Kannada, he asked him to say the same in Urdu as he did not understand Kannada. “They did not force us to speak Urdu,” he claimed.

Police get support
The police commissioner replied that he did not lie about the incident. “I have not lied about the incident and have conveyed whatever the police investigation in the case has revealed,” he said. Police officers, both serving and retired too, came in support of the police commissioner.

The Karnataka Police even released a statement saying, “Fake news is being circulated on social media about Chandru’s murder. We request people not to spread fake news without proper verification. And also, it is warned that the appropriate legal action will be taken against those who deliberately spread such fake news to disturb social harmony”.

Meanwhile, a senior officer said, “Raj hadn’t mentioned anything about Urdu in the complaint earlier. But after four days, he is making such a statement,” he said.

Bommai’s act
Owing to the pressure within the party, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who had always defended the police department in many difficult situations, now had handed over the case to the CID. Bommai said that either the police or the home minister is not inefficient. Proper investigation would be conducted and he did not want to make the issue more complicated.

Bommai ordered a CID probe into the death after a meeting with Karnataka DGP and Bengaluru Police Commissioner. On April 11, former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa criticized the Hindutva outfit campaigns targeting Muslims and Muslim-owned businesses. “L