Youth’s death: CID early probe rules out language row

By Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: In another twist to the case, the preliminary investigations by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) officials in connection to the murder of the 22-year old youth, has revealed that the language was not the reason for the murder, police sources said on Monday.

On April 4, Chandru, a youth was stabbed to death in J.J. Nagar of Bengaluru city. The incident took a communal turn after the Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra claimed that the youth was killed for not speaking in Urdu. Following this, the National General Secretary of BJP C.T. Ravi also issued a similar statement. However, the Home Minister later retracted his statement.

Police Commissioner Kamal Pant has clarified that the murder had taken place due to road rage incident. However, BJP MLC Ravikumar and others stated that Kamal Pant was “lying” and said the murder was over not knowing Urdu.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai later handed over the case to the CID for further investigation.

CID sleuths conducted the spot inspection and have recorded the statements of Chandru’s family, relatives, friends and most importantly of Simon Raj, who accompanied the deceased when the incident took place.

Raj had earlier stated before the media that Chandru was killed for not speaking Urdu, however he told the investigators that the quarrel started after the accused hit the victim’s bike, which later turned into a fight during which Chandru was stabbed to death. Raj has told the CID that the issue of language did not even come up.

The police sources explained that all the three accused, including the main accused Shaheed Pasha, speak fluent Kannada and investigations also revealed that deceased Chandru had a fair grip on Urdu language. However, further investigation is on.

The development is a setback for ruling BJP as some of its leaders had argued that the murder had taken place because of communal hatred.