BJP acting on Amit Shah’s advice to foment trouble: Siddaramaiah
, ET Bureau|
Dec 13, 2017, 11.24 AM IST
BENGALURU: With just four months to go for the assembly elections, the opposition BJP has stepped up a Gujarat-like "Hindu lives don't matter" campaign and issued a press note about the alleged killing of one of their supposed activists in the state's volatile coast, which the police subsequently debunked.
Chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted: "A desperate @BJP4Karnataka stoops so low as to use the unfortunate death of a youth, Paresh Mesta, in Honnavar for political gains. BJP leaders are heeding the advice of @ Amitshah to create trouble and invite police action. People are getting hurt by their irresponsible acts."
"Some leaders of the BJP state unit are following their party president Amit Shah and trying to cause communal discord in Karnataka with hopes of getting electoral benefits. This state has a home minister and a strong police force who will ensure their designs don't work," home minister Ramalinga Reddy told ET, hours after some miscreants in Honnavar town in the Uttar Kannada district set fire to the car of inspector general of police (Western range) Hemant Nimbalkar on Monday. Reddy pointed to a pattern over the last three months, where incidents of communal discord have been fanned, particularly in the coastal districts. "The same thing happened in Dakshina Kannada at Hunsur, now Honnavar. They are deliberately doing this, but we are ensuring they don't succeed," he said.
The situation in Uttar Kannada district continues to be tense as the police have clamped down, refusing to allow any gathering, except for marriage and local religious processions. This, because the BJP led by party MP Shobha Karandlaje, a close aide of BS Yeddyurappa, state unit president and the chief minister face of the party, are protesting the unnatural death of 19-year-old Paresh Kamalakar Mesta.
Karanadlaje claimed this is the work of two pro-Muslim organisations, PFI and SDPI, after a riot on the evening of December 6, the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. Karandlaje alleged that the youth had been tortured, castrated, oil poured on his face and his hands cut off for sporting a Jai Shri Ram tattoo. She said, "For the Siddaramaiahled government, Hindu lives don't matter."
A WhatsApp message to this effect, allegedly created by a school teacher whom the Honnavar police have since arrested, went viral and has led to law and order problems and the imposition of Section 144 in large parts of the area over the last couple of days. IGP Nimbalkar, condemned the social media messages which resulted in an attack on his driver and his car.
Nimbalkar, reportedly under orders from the CM, also issued a clarification drawn up by Shankar M Bakkannavar, a doctor of the private Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, on the postmortem of Mesta's body, which debunked torture or castration and said the bloated nature of the body was due it having been in a lake for two days. Bakkannavar's clarification also states that the Shri Ram tattoo is still intact on Mesta's hand.
The BJP, however, gave a memorandum to governor Vajubhai Vala demanding that the case be handed over to the National Investigation Agency.
Chief minister Siddaramaiah tweeted: "A desperate @BJP4Karnataka stoops so low as to use the unfortunate death of a youth, Paresh Mesta, in Honnavar for political gains. BJP leaders are heeding the advice of @ Amitshah to create trouble and invite police action. People are getting hurt by their irresponsible acts."
"Some leaders of the BJP state unit are following their party president Amit Shah and trying to cause communal discord in Karnataka with hopes of getting electoral benefits. This state has a home minister and a strong police force who will ensure their designs don't work," home minister Ramalinga Reddy told ET, hours after some miscreants in Honnavar town in the Uttar Kannada district set fire to the car of inspector general of police (Western range) Hemant Nimbalkar on Monday. Reddy pointed to a pattern over the last three months, where incidents of communal discord have been fanned, particularly in the coastal districts. "The same thing happened in Dakshina Kannada at Hunsur, now Honnavar. They are deliberately doing this, but we are ensuring they don't succeed," he said.
The situation in Uttar Kannada district continues to be tense as the police have clamped down, refusing to allow any gathering, except for marriage and local religious processions. This, because the BJP led by party MP Shobha Karandlaje, a close aide of BS Yeddyurappa, state unit president and the chief minister face of the party, are protesting the unnatural death of 19-year-old Paresh Kamalakar Mesta.
Karanadlaje claimed this is the work of two pro-Muslim organisations, PFI and SDPI, after a riot on the evening of December 6, the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. Karandlaje alleged that the youth had been tortured, castrated, oil poured on his face and his hands cut off for sporting a Jai Shri Ram tattoo. She said, "For the Siddaramaiahled government, Hindu lives don't matter."
A WhatsApp message to this effect, allegedly created by a school teacher whom the Honnavar police have since arrested, went viral and has led to law and order problems and the imposition of Section 144 in large parts of the area over the last couple of days. IGP Nimbalkar, condemned the social media messages which resulted in an attack on his driver and his car.
Nimbalkar, reportedly under orders from the CM, also issued a clarification drawn up by Shankar M Bakkannavar, a doctor of the private Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, on the postmortem of Mesta's body, which debunked torture or castration and said the bloated nature of the body was due it having been in a lake for two days. Bakkannavar's clarification also states that the Shri Ram tattoo is still intact on Mesta's hand.
The BJP, however, gave a memorandum to governor Vajubhai Vala demanding that the case be handed over to the National Investigation Agency.
