Editorial: Bommai govt must protect all

The violence that rocked Hubballi on Saturday night should be condemned in no uncertain terms.

Members of the Muslim community assembled in front of the Old Hubballi Police Station demanding action against 20-year-old Abhishek Hiremath, who had posted a morphed image of a saffron flag atop Grand Mosques of Makkah and Madinah - the two holy sites for Muslims - as his WhatsApp status. Based on a complaint, the police did arrest Hiremath for hurting religious sentiments, but the crowd refused to disperse forcing police to resort to tear gas. Later, the protesters wearing face covers pelted stones at a hospital, Diddi Hanumanth Temple and a school creating tension in and around the city. No one has the right to take the law into their hands and those who went berserk despite police assurances should be brought to book immediately. Only stern action can bring back normalcy.

Having said that, the Hubballi incident has left many questions unanswered. Pertinent among them are how the area near the police station went into a blackout during the stone pelting and how loads of stones became available in a short span of time. Reports also suggest that many of the CCTV cameras were not functioning at the time of the violence and a few suspicious persons were present in the vicinity. The onus is on the police to find answers to these questions and allay the fears of the common people.

However, the violence should not be seen in isolation. Communal tensions have been simmering in the region after a group of right-wing Hindutva activists destroyed the pushcart of a Muslim watermelon vendor earlier this month at Dharwad, which was preceded by a call to ban Muslim vendors from temple fairs. Right-wing appeals to boycott halal products, the hijab row and attacks on churches too had created a sense of insecurity among the minority communities. What is disheartening is the inaction of the Basavaraj Bommai-led Bharatiya Janata Party government. It did not take any concrete action to rein in those who spewed communal venom, which created an impression that the government is siding with trouble-makers.

That Karnataka used to witness communal tensions prior to elections is no secret. In the run up to the 2018 assembly elections too, the state witnessed many communal incidents, political killings and suspicious deaths in the coastal Karnataka region, which eventually benefited the BJP. Many political experts have already established a link between the current spate of communal incidents and the happenings in 2018. It is believed that the corruption-hit BJP government, which has already earned the epithet of ‘40 per cent government’, is hoping to retain power by capitalising on the deep divisions within society. The party should however realise that its democratically elected government belongs to all people and its duty is to protect all of them. The government should take immediate steps to protect people’s lives and property and focus on governance. Failing to act now will further dent Karnataka’s image.