India - Karnataka: Mangaluru sees uptick in vigilante violence as politically-backed Hindutva fringe groups multiply

FirstPost - Oct, 04 2017

Mangaluru sees uptick in vigilante violence as politically-backed Hindutva fringe groups multiply

M Raghuram 

 

Editor's note: This is the second of a four-part series on the changes in Mangaluru and coastal Karnataka's socio-political mileu over the years. The series traces the region's transformation from a tranquil coastal town to a hotbed of communal tension.

Mangaluru: Karnataka's coastal belt has always been famous for its lip-smacking cuisine but, of late, it has become infamous for communal vigilantism. For a layperson, the region is synonymous with 'moral policing'.
An audacious attack at a homestay on the outskirts of Mangaluru in July 2012, targeting about a dozen youngsters who were celebrating their friend's birthday, made headlines all over the country. Activists of right-wing group Hindu Jagarana Vedike (HJV) were caught on camera hitting young men and women alike and blackening their faces, with the women later alleging they were molested. The perpetrators justified their actions, saying they felt compelled to step up to the alleged obscene activities.

Representational image. Reuters

This was reminiscent of the January 2009 incident, wherein radical Hindutva groups Bajrang Dal and Sri Ram Sene barged into a pub in the Mangaluru and bashed up women, for flouting "traditional Indian norms of decency" and daring to "get close to Muslim men."
Then there are cases of cow vigilantism (2006, 2007), attacks on churches (2008) and on inter-faith couples, colleagues and friends.
While these happen to be the most high-profile cases of communal vigilantism in the region, these are far from an aberration. Police stations in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada recorded 348 such incidents from 2008 to 2014, according to a report by an NGO Transparency International and a human rights organisation People's Union for Civil Liberties.
On an average, one incident of 'moral policing' was reported every week in the seven-year period.
The politics of it
The multiplicity of fringe groups – Bajrang Dal, Sri Rama Sene, Hindu Yuva Sene, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Hindu Jagruta Balaga and many more – has led to funding problems for them. These groups depend heavily on political funding and organise festivals and poojas during religious Hindu events. Only a handful of them, such as Bajrang Dal and Sri Rama Sene, have political backing. The others depend on public contributions. In some cases, smaller groups have been accused of extorting money from businessmen.
The civil society has been questioning the link between politics and these communal vigilantes. Karnataka's minister for environment, ecology and forests B Ramanatha Rai was videotaped by his own party men, showing him admonishing Dakshina Kannada superintendent of police Bhushan Gulabrao Borase in front of some Muslim leaders of the party for trying to control a Muslim mob in a communal riot at Kalladka in June 2017. Borase was transferred soon after. The video went viral but despite this incident, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wanted to give Rai the charge of the home ministry, which governs the police department.
As the right-wing radical groups subscribe to the same Hindutva ideology as the BJP, the common man sees both the parties as a part of the problem. BJP president Amit Shah, during his visit to Mangaluru and Udupi this August, asked the party's state leadership to put fringe groups associated with the organisation on a leash. While he did not make a comment about it in any public meeting, he told the state leaders in a closed-door meeting that these groups should not be allowed to take the law into their own hands.
Social activist Muneer Katipalla said that these so-called vigilantes have a hidden agenda, which they mask with social causes. Merlyn Matis, a Mangaluru-based social thinker and an intellectual, said political groups depend on vigilantism one way or another. She alleged that parties use these groups for election-related work, and thus they spare no efforts to rescue them from the clutches of law when they court trouble.
Requesting anonymity, a police officer said radical Muslim groups are also active in the coastal region, although they are not as organised. The police officer said these groups seek to recruit youth to terrorist groups such as the Islamic State. In Puttur town in Dakshina Kannada, two police cases were registered wherein Muslim men would stalk and harass schoolgoing girls, offer them chocolates and cash and nudge them to talk on the phone with them. The police officer said that these too were vigilante activities.

Pro-Hindutva activists attacked youths at a party at Padil on the outskirts of Mangaluru in July 2012. Image procured by author

Love Jihad
Hindutva groups call this Love Jihad. They believe young men from the Muslim community bait Hindu women by pretending to love them and get them to convert to their religion. Satyajit Surathkal, the leader of HJV and president of BJP Yuva Morcha of Mangaluru North assembly constituency, told Firstpost that as Hindutva activists, they oppose Love Jihad and are committed to protecting Hindu women from being lured into other communities.
Groups such as HJV, Sri Rama Sene and Hindu Yuva Sene work together in identifying the so-called Love Jihad activities. Their network of informers is spread everywhere, from the crew on private buses to auto-rickshaw drivers, employees of malls and restaurants and even street food vendors. He said they have been collecting data on inter-faith marriages in the coast from the marriage registrars' offices. He said a look at the records reveals that many Hindu women have been marrying men of other religion.
Deteriorating social fabric
What they call their social responsibility has, to an extent, vitiated the milieu of the region. Kavita (name changed), a student of St Agnes College, Mangaluru, said that she and her friends are the socialising kinds but they are always wary of going out since they hear so much about vigilante attacks.
One of the victims of the 2012 homestay attack told Firstpost that her family moved to Bangalore after the horrific incident to escape the social stigma. She said it's after coming to Bangalore that she realised what freedom of movement is. She said she's free now and leading a normal life, adding that things hadn't changed in Mangaluru.
The police say they have been making efforts to check hooliganism by communal outfits. Mangaluru city police commissioner TR Suresh said they have asked every police station in their jurisdiction to monitor people involved in such activities. He said the district police must have followed suit, adding that police officers have been advising community leaders to arrest troublesome people regardless of their socio-political or religious affiliations.
Part 1: Mangaluru's present identity as hotbed of communal tension sharply contrasts with its peaceful past
The author is a Mangaluru-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

 

India - Karnataka: Hindutva activists of Hindu Jagaran Vedike held for attack on Kannada writer Yogesh Master

The Hindu

Hindutva activists held for attack on Kannada writer
STAFF REPORTER DAVANGERE  MARCH 14, 2017 01:41 IST

Motive was to insult and demoralise Yogesh Master: police

Two persons, said to be members of the Hindu Jagaran Vedike, have been arrested in connection with the episode of smearing black oil on the face of progressive writer Yogesh Master in Davangere on Sunday.

The arrests were made on Monday by four separate teams of police formed to inquire into the attack.

Search for others on


The arrested have been identified as Chetan and Shivaprasad, both residents of Davangere town.

According to police sources, the motive behind the attack was to humiliate and demoralise the author for his writings against Hindu gods. The teams continue their search for others accused in the case.

Davangere Superintendent of Police Bhimashankar Guled told The Hindu that the police had intensified the search operations based on the information provided by the two arrested persons. He expressed the confidence that the others would be arrested soon.

Controversial novel


Mr. Yogesh Master, author of the controversial Kannada novel Dundhi, was attacked when he was having tea at a hotel after participating in a programme organised in the memory of journalist P. Lankesh.

India: Moral policing by vigitante groups in Mengaluru (Indulekha Aravind's report in Economic Times)

'Moral' gurus: How Mangaluru has become a breeding ground for vigilante groups
By Indulekha Aravind, ET Bureau | 20 Sep, 2015

MANGALURU: VT Prasad, a crime reporter with Mangaluru-based daily Karavali Ale, is describing his ordeal of two years ago in a matter-of-fact tone when, suddenly, the middle-aged man breaks down. "I'm sitting here talking to you now but I don't know if I'll be alive to do that tomorrow," he says, taking a minute to recover.

An unrelenting downpour lashes the coastal city as Prasad recounts how he was thrashed and left to die by members of the Popular Front of India (PFI), an Islamic group, according to the complaint he filed with the police. His crime?

That he, a Hindu, had dared to help a Muslim woman in his village, a destitute widow who did not have a proper roof over her head. The case is being heard at the sessions court but Prasad says he continues to receive threats. "I can't leave my 96-year-old father and move somewhere else," he says, helplessly.

If the PFI was responsible for the brutal communal assault on Prasad, it was members of the saffron brigade who beat up Mohammed Riyaz in February, then a final-year undergraduate student of computer applications.

Sitting with his grandfather at their house in Surathkal, 15 km away from Mangaluru, the lanky 20-year-old is subdued as he describes the assault that put him in a hospital's intensive care unit for three days. Riyaz's classmate at Govinda Dasa College, Mohammed Swali, had stretched himself out on the laps of five of their female classmates and someone else took a photo. But when that photo was circulated on social media, trouble began brewing.

Swali, you see, was a Muslim and the girls, Hindu. Riyaz, who can be seen in the edge of the picture's frame, was abducted from his house and beaten up by six men who wanted to know where Swali was. He was released after three hours when the men realised Riyaz's father had filed a police complaint and they were being tracked. "I don't go out much these days... People watch me, and it's not a good feeling," he says.

Attacks like these by rightwing vigilante groups have earned Mangaluru the tag of being a hub of "moral policing", a misnomer for violence in the garb of "protecting" communities. The disturbing visuals of the 2009 attack led by the Sri Ram Sena, a right-wing Hindu group, on a group of girls at a pub in the city and another in 2012 by members of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike on a group of boys and girls at a home-stay on the city's outskirts are yet to vanish from collective memory.

But they have been succeeded by a steady stream of harassment of varying degrees of violence, particularly on couples from different communities. Just two weeks ago, a Muslim manager of a supermarket was stripped, tied to an electric pole and beaten in full public view, because he had been accompanied by a Hindu woman colleague in his car.

It's difficult to reconcile all these incidents with what a first-time visitor would see on the streets of the city, located 350 km from Bengaluru on the Konkan coast. Its multi-cultural, multi-linguistic essence is omnipresent, whether it is the temples, churches and mosques distributed throughout its various quarters, the way people dress, or the various languages you hear around you (Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Beary and Malayalam). The population demographic is cosmopolitan, divided between 69% of Hindus, around 17% Muslims, 13% Christians and a few other minorities.

Yet, beneath this veneer is a communal unrest fomented by vigilante groups who have appointed themselves "guardians" of their community with the blessings of leaders who seek to polarise society. So much so, that an oft-repeated comment in Mangaluru is that if a boy and a girl from the Hindu and Muslim communities are even spotted together on a bus, the vehicle would be stopped by hooligans at some point.

A conversation with Jagadeesh K Shenava, district president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is both revealing and disquieting. An advocate, Shenava was previously with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but says he was given the reins of the local unit when they needed someone "tough".

"There are only two matters in Mangaluru: boy and girl, and cow slaughter," says Shenava, raising the favourite twin bogeys of Sangh Parivar parties. And though he says he does not endorse violence, Shenava is convinced parties like the VHP and Bajrang Dal are well within their rights to police society. He even goes on to claim, "Many parents have said [that] because of the Bajrang Dal, there is some control over society."

Stirring the Communal Cauldron

But it was not always so. Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, district president of Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike (Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum), can recall a Mangaluru where communal incidents never escalated to this extent. Two of the local spirits or "bhoothas" worshipped by Hindus even had Muslim names, he says. Naveen Soorinje, a journalist from Mangaluru, also remembers a time when festival processions would stop at a mosque en route, and the Dalit priest offer a flower there. "That amity is no longer there," says Soorinje, who has covered right-wing vigilantism in the region extensively, and was falsely implicated in the case in which the Hindu Jagarana Vedike attacked the guests at a home-stay.


Locals say Hindutva outfits shot into prominence back in the early '90s following the Babri Masjid demolition and were able to move into the space once occupied by the Left parties. Earlier, the Left drew many members from the Mangaluru tile manufacturing units and other factories, which are now in decline.

The Sangh Parivar worked assiduously to promote the Hindutva ideology among the local backward castes like the Billavas, who were traditionally toddy tappers, and the Mogaveers, the fishing community, says Bakrabail. "The Billavas used to be animists but today they too follow the Vedic traditions and use Brahmin priests," he says.
The only change in recent years is that these incidents of "moral policing" are no longer the sole domain of the Sangh Parivar outfits, as the attack on Prasad shows. "Both communities are responsible for these incidents and have contributed in equal measure," says BV Seetaram, editor-in-chief of three dailies in the region, including Karavali Ale.
Seetaram is referring to parties like the Popular Front of India, and its earlier avatar, the Karnataka Forum for Dignity, which are a mirror image of the Bajrang Dal and indulge in the same sort of vigilantism. "And like anywhere else in the country, women are the target," adds Seetaram, whose paper and staff members have been attacked on multiple occasions for their outspoken reportage.

Thus, if the Hindutva brigade was responsible for 39 incidents of moral policing reported in the local media in 2014, the blame for 14 could be laid at the doors of Muslim vigilantes. Bakrabail has been keeping a record of communal incidents in the region based on local media reports since he retired as an engineer in 2006 and he says there has been no let-up.

Leaders of the Jamat-e-Islami Hind, which positions itself as a moderate Islamic force in Mangaluru, give another clutch of reasons for the number of communal flare-ups and incidents of "moral policing". "One, Hindutva organisations are very strong here, and there is a dedicated RSS cadre. Two, the prosperity of Muslims and influx of money from west Asia have created some amount of jealousy," says Mohammed Kunhi, joint secretary of the organisation.

The Popular Front of India, a federation of parties from Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, he says, is aiding the Sangh agenda with its violence. "The Congress here is riven by factionalism and there is no strong secular force to counter the saffron agenda," he adds.

A Law unto Themselves

Whether it is the Bajrang Dal, Hindu Jagarana Vedike or Popular Front, the modus operandi is similar. The parties reportedly have an established network of informers throughout the city who let them know if couples or friends from different religions are found spending time together and they threaten and intimidate them. As Seetaram points out, each community claims to be "protecting" their women and "values".

According to media reports and locals in the area, police often "counsel" the youngsters instead of going after the lumpen. In the instances where police complaints are filed, the vigilantes browbeat women to file counter-complaints.

In the recent supermarket incident, for example, the woman colleague who can be seen covering her face in the video clip later complained that her Muslim supervisor, who had been attacked, had been harassing her and that the crowd had gathered in response to her cries for help.

While agreeing that Mangaluru is a communally sensitive area and that there is a communal divide that gets exploited politically, police commissioner S Murugan says there is no rise as such in incidents of "moral policing".

"As far as reported cases go, there is a fall," he says, dismissing incidents like the recent assault on the supermarket manager as oneoffs. Bakrabail's carefully collated news reports of communal tensions, however, indicate that these groups seem to be acting with impunity. The truth that nobody would like to acknowledge, says Murugan, is that these issues enjoy currency among certain sections of communities. "How many Hindu leaders, for instance, condemned the supermarket case? These are the people who should be vociferously denouncing these incidents."

Still, the agenda to polarise is not yet all-pervasive. At Hotel Narayana, a well-known local eatery in the Bunder area near the port, customers from all communities and socioeconomic classes throng to sample the tawa-fry fish heaped with masala. Shyam Sunder, the proprietor of the 70-year old, no-frills establishment, says his business has not been affected by such incidents and he gets a fair number of both Hindu and Muslim diners. "I'm a businessman and can't side with anyone as such," he says.


Near Kasturba Medical College, two fourth-year MBBS students say they feel safer in Mangaluru than in Delhi and Chandigarh, the cities where they are from. "We have friends from all communities and we usually go out in groups. We've never faced problems," says Vaishnavi Jatana.

Her friend, Aayushi Gupta, from Delhi, has even found people in Mangaluru to be relatively liberal. "I don't feel awkward wearing skirts here," she adds. Jamat-e-Islami's Kunhi also says the rampant ghettoisation in places like Gujarat has not yet reached Mangaluru. "The Konkani businessmen need the Muslim customer," he says. As much as the vigilante groups try to push their agenda, the city, it seems, has not yet given in.

India: In coastal Karnataka, history of communalism is yet to be written

In coastal Karnataka, history of communalism is yet to be written

• Sudipto Mondal, Hindustan Times
• Updated: Sep 06, 2015

MM Kalburgi's murder is the latest in a series of violent events perpetrated by fundamentalists in coastal Karnataka, where all the major communities are guilty of encouraging an atmosphere of intolerance. In this photo, Bajrang Dal activists shout slogans during a protest rally in Bangalore against the terrorist attack inside the makeshift temple in Ayodhya in 2005. (AFP Photo)

---

I can't remember if I was slapped, shoved or punched. But the night of September 1, 2008 was the first time I was attacked on the crime beat in Mangalore.
That night, a group of activists from the Hindu Jagarana Vedike were ransacking a Christian missionary hospital and attacking its staff because a Hindu girl, who had consumed poison, could not be saved by the doctors there. They were accusing the hospital staff of neglecting the girl because she was Hindu.
The bearded Hindu Jagarana Vedike leader who hit me for taking a snap of the violence was a Catholic Christian. His name was Franklin Montiero. He was not the first Christian I had met in the Sangh Parivar in Mangalore, which is called the Rome of the East for its sizable Catholic population.

A few weeks earlier, the Sri Rama Sene had shut down the city to protest against the Ram Sethu shipping canal project. They surrounded me when I took images of them attacking a shopkeeper who had defied their ban near the Mangalore prison. A large, burly, menacing-looking man suddenly burst onto the scene and yelled at the Sene activists in Tulu. They immediately backed down and apologised to me. My hero introduced himself as a journalist, dog breeder, Karate champion, event manager, real estate agent and member of the BJP minority morcha. He was also a Catholic.
Read: Bangalore Muslim boy asked to recite Hindu prayer, 'humiliated'
The karate champion promised to find me a house on rent close to my office and after many postponements we finally agreed to meet on Sunday, September 14, 2008. That morning, I got a frantic call from him around 8 am. "They have attacked us! They have attacked us!" he shouted into the phone straining to be heard over the hundreds of loud voices in the background.
In a well coordinated move, the Bajrang Dal had attacked around 20 churches across the twin coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. When I reached the 350-year-old Milagres Church where all the shocked Catholics of the city had gathered, I found the Karate champ sobbing like a baby. "I am quitting the BJP and the Sangh parivar," he said.

Many Catholics, who had either been supporters of the Sangh or indifferent to its attacks on Muslims in coastal Karnataka until then, moved away from the Hindutva fold that day. But Franklin Montiero stayed back and went on to become the State Vice President of the BJP's minority morcha.

There doesn't seem to be any authoritative scholarship on the history of communalism in coastal Karnataka, which according to some is the third most important centre for the Sangh after Nagpur and Pune. For now, the story is best told through the personal histories of common people who live here. It is a story of shifting loyalties and changing identities.
These stories offer some insight into two recent incidents that made national headlines: the public stripping of a Muslim man in Mangalore for speaking to a Hindu woman and the assassination of rationalist Professor MM Kalburgi 400 km away in Dharwad.
Catholics like Montiero, for instance, were raised on family stories about the first time the community was attacked over two centuries ago. In 1784, suspecting the Catholics of being British spies, Tipu Sultan had razed at least two dozen churches in the region, including the Milagres Church. When the first RSS shakhas started sprouting in the region during the 1940s, many Catholic businessmen actively supported the growth of militant Hindutva as a means to contain the common enemy, the Muslims.
A Catholic priest invoked this shared history at a peace committee meeting at the Deputy Commissioner's office in Mangalore a few days after the church attacks. He told the Sangh leaders at the gathering, who were accusing Christian missionaries of converting lowered caste Hindus: "We are the same people. We were also Saraswat Brahmins like you. Both of us suffered equally under Tipu Sultan."
At the Nehru football stadium where I used to play football, a group of Muslim players told me another interesting story. A group of footballers from the Catholic part of town had approached them a day after the church attacks and asked them for help in exacting revenge. "We laughed and asked them, 'Where were you when we were getting attacked all these years?' There was no answer," one of the Muslim players told me.
For many in the outside world, Mangalore's history starts with the pub attack of January 2009 when Sri Rama Sene activists hit and molested girls who were partying. The attack led activists based in Delhi to form the "consortium of loose, forward and pub going women" which started the Pink Chaddi campaign.

But by then, hundreds of simple women - dressed in saris, churidars and burkhas - who were neither "forward" nor "pub going" had been attacked by right wing groups merely for speaking to men from another community.
Many trace the origins of this vigilantism to the 1998 communal riots in Surathkal near Mangalore. Eight people were killed in those riots that started when the Hindu Jagarana Vedike attacked a Muslim man for dating a Hindu girl. Since then, the trend has been that the police file cases against the victims of these vigilante attacks under ambiguous laws relating to public indecency. The recent stripping of the Muslim man was the 140th such incident this year alone.
Read: After Kalburgi murder, Bajrang Dal leader says another rationalist next
The Surathkal riots also provided an entry point for the Muslim fundamentalist organisation Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD). Until the riots, the KFD was active only in Kerala where it was called the National Development Front. They are now known as the Popular Front of India (PFI).
Secular groups such as the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum regularly shared the stage with the KFD/PFI whenever they held protests against the communalism of the Sangh. The 'secularists' would demand proof when asked how they could ally with one communal group to counter another.
That proof presented itself on the evening of October 6, 2009 when activists of the PFI attacked a Hindu boy in front of the Deputy Commissioner's office in Mangalore for dating a Muslim girl. When I called him for a reaction, the then district secretary of the PFI, Ataullah, claimed responsibility for the attack only to retract his statement when the incident created a huge uproar. Ties between the PFI and the communal harmony forum soured after the incident and today, they no longer share a stage. This year, activists of the PFI have been held responsible for six of the 140 vigilante attacks in the region.

However, the PFI did not give birth to Islamic fundamentalism in coastal Karnataka, which has been a major centre for liberal Sufi Islam. Increasingly ghettoised by the rise of the Hindu Right and abandoned by the Congress, the Beary Sunni Muslims of the region had started turning to religion in a big way as early as the 1970s.
Young Beary men, who went to West Asia in search of a fortune, brought back not just material wealth but also an interpretation of Islam that ran counter to Sufisim. Groups such as the Tablighi Jamaat and the Jamat-e-Islami had gained a huge following in the area by the time the turbulence of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement hit the Konkan coast in 1992.
The polarising events of those years propelled one man from the region onto the national stage - the seer of the Udupi Pejawar Mutt, Vishveshwara Theertha Swami. A disciple of the second RSS chief MS (Guruji) Golwalkar, the soft-spoken pontiff, now 84, is seen by many as the man who laid the foundation for the Sangh in Coastal Karnataka.
In 1969, Theerta organised the first ever state-level conference of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Golwalkar was the chief guest at the event, which also saw the participation of many Congress leaders of the time. Four years earlier, in 1965, the then Mysore Maharaja and founder President of the VHP, Jaya Chamrajendra Wodeyar Bahadur, had organised the third national executive meeting of the outfit at his summer palace.
During an interview at his Bangalore ashram on Wednesday, Theertha recalled those days fondly and said, "When he came to Udupi in 1969, Guruji praised me in front of 65,000 people for helping the Mysore Maharaja with the national executive meeting."
He said that before the 1960s, the Sangh barely had any presence in coastal Karnataka. "Cows were being slaughtered by thousands but nobody was speaking out against it. That's when we started the VHP to take up this issue seriously."
Police records from the 1960s show that it was a period when a series of attacks were launched against Muslim cattle traders. The years of the Emergency added further heft to the VHP with many Congress and even some young Left leaders joining its ranks. This was also the period when the VHP started spreading its footprint to other regions of Karnataka such as Hubli-Dharwad, Raichur and Bagalkot.
But for some, even the VHP was too soft. By the late 1970s, the Hindu Yuva Sene took on the responsibility of cow protection in the coast. This group made way for the even more militant Hindu Jagarana Vedike in the 1990s. And the Gujarat riots of 2002 allowed the Bajrang Dal to replace the Jagarana Vedike to spearhead the Hindutva movement in coastal Karnataka.
People such as Franklin Montiero, Ataulla and the Pejawara pontiff are bound to contest this version of events. But it stands to reason that everybody is entitled to a telling of this story in a region which has been torn asunder by competitive communalism that has led to riots, curfews, killings and vigilante attacks for the last 50 years.
And the task of writing a definitive history of all this is as difficult as catching all the fish in the Arabian sea.

India: Hindutva and BJP Thugs Celebrate the Death of Famed Writer UR Ananthamurthy

Ananthamurthy's death: case against BJP men
Sudipto Mondal, Hindustan Times Bangalore, August 23, 2014

Karnataka Police have registered a case against alleged BJP and Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists who burst crackers to "celebrate" the death of famed writer UR Ananthamurthy.

A case was registered by the Mudigere police in Chikmangalur on Saturday against unidentified BJP and Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists under sections of the IPC relating to rioting, causing public nuisance and forming an unlawful assembly. Police sources said that they have footage and photographs of the incident and hope to nab the culprits soon.

The miscreants burst crackers at four places in Mangalore and one spot in Chikmangalur soon after the news of Ananthamurthy's death was announced on Friday evening. Ananthamurthy who was known for his strong anti-BJP views had raised a storm during the Lok Sabha elections by saying he would leave the country if Modi became PM.

This happened even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to convey his condolences minutes after the death of the Jnanpith and Padma award winning author

Activists of the Youth Congress and various Left parties held a protest in Chikmangalur town to condemn the actions of the Hindutva activists.

Mangalore police commissioner R Hitendra said, "We have registered a case in one incident against unidentified persons."

In Mangalore, over a dozen organisations, including the Dalit Sangharsh Samiti and the Democratic Youth Federation of India, have decided to picket the Deputy Commissioner's office demanding that the police take cognisance of the other three cases as well. In a release to the media, the organisers of the protest said that there was enough video footage and photos to identify the miscreants.

"The actions of the Hindutva activists were clearly aimed at creating communal discord and disaffection toward a celebrated national icon," DYFI president Muneer Katipalla told HT.

Sharan Pumpwell, Bajrang Dal state president, told HT, "The celebrations were not organised by us. Some of our sympathisers might have been carried away. As far as our differences with Ananthamurthy are concerned, they were intellectual, not personal."

BJP state president Prahlad Joshi refused to react to the incident.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bjp-activists-booked-for-celebrating-ananthamurthy-s-death/article1-1255620.aspx

o o o

अनंतमूर्ति की मौत पर बीजेपी समर्थकों का जश्न, केस दर्ज
नवभारतटाइम्स.कॉम | Aug 23, 2014, 04.12PM IST

बेंगलुरु
ज्ञानपीठ और पद्मभूषण अवॉर्ड से सम्मानित कन्नड़ भाषा के महान लेखक यूआर अनंतमूर्ति की मौत पर बीजेपी और हिन्दू जागरण वैदिक के कार्यकर्ताओं द्वारा पटाखे फोड़ जश्न मनाने पर कर्नाटक पुलिस ने मामले दर्ज किए हैं। चिकमंगलुर के मुदिगेरे पुलिस ने शनिवार को अज्ञात बीजेपी और हिन्दू जागरण वैदिक के कार्यकर्ताओं के खिलाफ आईपीसी की धारा के तहत दंगा, उपद्रव और गैरकानूनी मजमा जुटाने के खिलाफ मामले दर्ज किए हैं। पुलिस सूत्रों ने बताया कि फूटेज और तस्वीरों के आधार पर दोषियों को जल्द पकड़ लिया जाएगा।

इन बदमाशों ने शुक्रवार शाम अनंतमूर्ति की मौत की खबर सुनते ही मैंगलोर में चार जगहों पर और चिकमंगलुर में एक स्थान पर आतिशबाजी की थी। जाहिर है इस महान लेखक की छवि धुर बीजेपी और मोदी विरोधी थी। बीजेपी के तरफ से पीएम कैंडिडेट घोषित किए जाने के बाद अनंतमूर्ति ने कहा का था कि यदि मोदी पीएम बने तो वह देश छोड़ देंगे। मूर्ति की मौत पर इन बदमाशों ने ऐसी गंदी हरकत तब की जबकि प्रधानमंत्री मोदी ने मौत की खबर मिलते ही शोक प्रकट किया था। पीएम ने मूर्ति की मौत को कन्नड़ साहित्य के लिए भारी नुकसान बताया था। मूर्ति की मौत पर इन कट्टर हिन्दुवादियों के जश्न के विरोध में यूथ कांग्रेस और लेफ्ट पार्टी की तरफ से निंदा मार्च निकाला गया।

मैंगलोर पुलिस कमिश्नर आर हितेंद्र ने बताया, 'हमलोगों ने इस मामले में अज्ञात लोगों के खिलाफ केस दर्ज किए हैं।' मैंगलोर में दर्जनों संगठनों ने डेप्युटी कमिश्नर ऑफिस के सामने प्रदर्शन कर कड़ी कार्रवाई करने की मांग की। इन संगठनों ने कहा कि इस मामले में पर्याप्त विडियो क्लिप और तस्वीरें हैं। दोषियों की पहचान कोई मुश्किल काम नहीं है। ऐसे में पुलिस को तत्काल कड़ी कार्रवाई करनी चाहिए।
[ जारी है ]

बजरंग दल के स्टेट प्रेजिडेंट शारण पंपवेल ने बताया कि यह जश्न संगठन की तरफ से आयोजित नहीं था। हो सकता है हमारे कुछ उत्साही समर्थकों ने ऐसा किया हो। अनंतमूर्ति से मतभेद रहे हैं लेकिन वह वैचारिक था न कि व्यक्तिगत। वहीं बीजेपी प्रेजिडेंट प्रह्लाद जोशी ने इस मामले पर कुछ भी कहने से इनकार कर दिया।

source: http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/state/other-states/bangalore/chennai/bjp-activists-booked-for-celebrating-ananthamurthys-death/articleshow/40784991.cms

India: Hindu Jagarana Vedike Right-wing outfit molests councillor in Mangalore city

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cong-corporator-accuses-hindutva-activists-of-molesting-her/article1-1203520.aspx

Right-wing outfit molests Congress councillor
Sudipto Mondal, Hindustan Times Mangalore (Dakshina Kannada District), April 02, 2014
First Published: 21:35 IST(2/4/2014) | Last Updated: 11:19 IST(3/4/2014)
A mob of around 30 suspected Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists allegedly sexually assaulted a woman member of Mangalore City Corporation when she was canvassing for the Congress party on Sunday.

The Hindu Jagarana Vedike has denied that its members molested the woman.

The attack, which reportedly occurred in full public view and was purportedly also captured on mobile phones by the attackers, came to light late on Tuesday after the Congress corporator (name withheld) addressed a press conference.

She said the Hindutva activists first surrounded her and then made a 16-year-old-member of their gang assault her at Kodikere near Mangalore around 4pm.

In the video, the boy can be seen grabbing the victim and attempting to strip her even as his comrades laugh and shout pro-Hindutva slogans.

As he attacks her, the teenager is heard saying, “Don’t you find Hindu men attractive? Why do you like only Muslim men?”

The corporator is a Hindu. The slur was purportedly used in reference to her political proximity to some Muslim leaders of her party.

Videos of the attack have since been shared on WhatsApp, an instant messaging service for mobile phones.

The corporator said the attackers also threatened her that once Narendra Modi became the prime minister all people like her would be taught a lesson.

Modi is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate.

Asked about the attack, Satyajit Surathkal, south India convenor of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike (based in Mangalore) said, “Our boys were just talking to her. She suddenly started getting physically aggressive and some of our boys retaliated mildly. Nobody molested her.”

He added, “We don’t treat Hindu women like that. I have not seen the video everybody is talking about. I’m sure it is fake.”

Police inaction

The police registered an FIR in connection with the attack after Tuesday’s press conference. The corporator claimed the police had reached the spot on Sunday soon after the attack, but made no effort to chase away or arrest the people who molested her.

“The police merely prevented them from causing further damage.”

Mangalore police commissioner R Hitendra confirmed that many of the suspects had several other cases against them including murder and extortion.

Hitendra said, “We did not initially register a case because we did not receive a complaint. We have now provided her with an armed guard.”

He failed to explain why the police did not register a complaint on their own despite officials reaching the spot soon after the assault, when the attackers were allegedly still around.

The police are yet to arrest any of the suspects.

The corporator claimed senior police officials had advised her to stay away from the area for her own safety.

Mangalore has seen similar vigilante attacks in the past.

Suspected Sri Rama Sene activists had attacked girls in a pub in January 2009. In July 2012, suspected Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists had assaulted 13 students including six girls in a show of moral policing at a house in Mangalore. This is often referred to as the homestay attack case.

Read: 8 Hindu right-wing men held for Mangalore attack

The attack on the corporator, however, is the first known instance of a politician being targeted by the vigilantes.

‘Act or I will quit’

“They dared to attack me even though our government is in power. If no action is taken I will resign from my post,” the corporator said at the press conference she addressed with local Congress MLA Moideen Bawa.

Bawa appealed for “justice”. Soon after he made that appeal, people targeted him on the social media, seeking to know who he wants justice from when the Congress is in power in Karnataka.

Seven of the eight MLAs in Mangalore are from the Congress and three of them are cabinet ministers.

The incident has triggered resentment among a section of Congress workers in the district.

Vidya Dinker of the Forum Against Atrocities on Women said, “If the Congress cannot protect its own people despite being in power, what about ordinary women? There has been a huge increase in attacks on women by such groups after the Congress came to power.”

Incidentally, this forum was formed in the aftermath of the homestay attack.

Not the first time

The corporator said her attackers had been harassing her ever since she started campaigning for the corporation elections. The harassment continued when Bawa was nominated for the 2013 assembly elections. She claimed six months ago, the Hindutva activists had waylaid her car when her five-year-old daughter was with her.

“They don’t want any party but the BJP to enter their area. They also object when we take non-Hindus for campaigning,” she said.

India: Violent clash between to two Hindutva fundamentalst groups in Karnataka

From Deccan Herald

50 hurt as Bajrang Dal, Hindu Vedike activists clash
Ullal, August 30, 2013 < DHNS:

A group of 50 persons, allegedly Bajrang Dal activists created havoc at Kumpala Balakrishna Mandir, by fatally attacking a member of Hindu Jagarana Vedike activist and pelting bottles and stones on houses and shops in the vicinity, in the wee hours of Friday. The miscreants also set a car on fire belonging to Hindu Jagarana Vedike member.

According to the police, youth damaged banners and cutouts near Balakrishna Mandira. During this rampage, a nearby resident Praveen came out of his house and cautioned the miscreants to immediately stop the rampage.

Outraged by this, the mob began pelting soda bottles at Praveen’s house, causing damage to valuables in his house, and also assaulted his son. In the meantime, the miscreants waylaid a Hindu Jagarana Vedike (HJV) activist Pakku alias Vijayaprakash and attacked him using lethal weapons. They also set his car on fire.

Prakash who was critically injured during the attack went in search of help to a house nearby belonging to Manohar. The attackers again followed him and attacked a woman named Kumuda who had arrived on the scene to help.

Prakash soon managed to escape from there and entered a house belonging to Yashoda Gatti.

The attackers who were still on his trail attacked him again with soda bottles. He sustained serious injuries during this attack.

As soon as residents started gathering in the area, the attackers fled from the spot.

Act of revenge

It is said that during the Mosaru Kudike procession on Wednesday, in one of the tableaux belonging to HJV, two of the children dressed in a tiger dance attire were slapped by Bajrang Dal members.

Angered by this, HJV activists had a tiff with Bajrang Dal activists.
Under the guidance of Bajrang Dal activist Kunta Ganesh, members Santhu, Sandeep, Prashant, Shashi, Manish, Sanketh, Duggu, Dhanraj, Ranga Ganesh, Lailu, Jayaraj along with others took revenge of the fight.The attackers were in inebriated condition.
Ullal police who rushed to the spot, have arrested Ashish, Ravishankar, Sharoon, Rajesh, Shailesh from Bajrang Dal Assaigoli unit.

Bus damaged

It is also learnt that two-wheeler borne miscreants pelted stones at a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus near Nithyanda Nagar. The reason is not known. A case has been registered.

Talk Hindutva, Sell Narcotics ?

A 10-member group allegedly assaulted a staff member of Kannada daily Karavali Ale at Kulai here on Wednesday night.According to B.V. Seetaram, director and chairman of Chitra Publications, which publishes the paper, Harish Putran (36), office assistant, was attacked when he was waiting near Vishnumurthy temple to catch a bus back home.He was hit with iron rods and wickets and chased by the attackers, Mr. Seetaram said. Mr. Putran managed to save himself by hiding behind a shop.
http://www.sacw.net/article3745.html

Karnataka: Driver of newspaper van attacked by the Hindu Right; 4,000 copies of the paper taken away

The Hindu

MANGALORE, February 10, 2013

Driver of van carrying Karavali Ale attacked

Staff Correspondent

Activists of right-wing group take away 4,000 copies of the paper

Members of a right-wing group, which is allegedly behind the attack on a staff of the Kannada daily Karavali Ale on Wednesday, prevented distribution of the newspaper on Saturday. They assaulted the driver of a van that carried the newspaper bundles in the afternoon.

Allegation

B.V. Seetharam, director and chairman of Chitra Publications that publishes the newspaper, said a group of Hindu Jagaran Vedike activists attacked Raju, the driver, near Kulai when he was returning after delivering copies of the newspaper in Kundapur. Mr. Seetaram said the vedike activists snatched the keys of the vehicle and beat up Mr. Raju. They threatened him against carrying the copies of the paper in future.

Mr. Seetharam said the vedike activists had been following Mr. Raju’s vehicle when he was on his way to Kundapur. They waylaid the vehicle near Haleyangady soon after a policeman, who was travelling with the driver, got off the vehicle. They took away 4,000 copies of the paper.

Mr. Seetharam alleged that the Suratkal police had failed to arrest the people who were involved in the attack on his staff.

He said distribution of the newspaper had been affected in several parts of the city . Senior police officials had been informed about the incident, Mr. Seetharam added.

Distribution of the newspaper affected in Mangalore

A staff of Karavali Ale was attacked on Wednesday

Karnataka journalist behind bars because he spoke too often, too loud against communal forces?

From: Tehelka

Soorinje’s story has been playing out below the radar of national attention

Is this journalist behind bars because he spoke too often, too loud against communal forces?

Shoma Chaudhury 

January 30, 2013, Issue 5 Volume 10 

 

IN A week when two national parties have found new helmsmen, a former CM has been convicted to 10 years in jail, another CM has been rapped by his own father for misgovernance, a state government is on the verge of collapse, and a major report on rape laws has been submitted to the home ministry, it might seem a bit odd to devote this column to something else altogether.
But over the past two and a half months, an important story has been playing out below the radar of national attention. It pleads a greater hearing. On 7 November 2012, Naveen Soorinje, a 28-year old reporter working with the Kasturi News 24 channel in Karnataka, was arrested on daunting charges: conspiracy; unlawful assembly; rioting with deadly weapons; criminal trespass; causing grievous hurt; and assault on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty.
Ironically, three months earlier, it was Soorinje’s story that had helped the police book 43 goons from the right-wing Hindu Jagaran Vedike for breaking into a private birthday party in Mangalore and molesting and beating the girls there. Now, in a cruel twist, the police had booked him as the 44th assaulter. In the last week of December, crushingly for Soorinje, the Karnataka High Court struck down some of the charges but still denied him bail. It held him guilty of colluding with the assaulters because he did not inform the police and because, according to the judge’s ruling, he had “encouraged the happening of the incident and assisted in videography of the event, and thereafter facilitated its telecast in television channels, which has caused greater damage to the dignity and reputation of the victims”. Soorinje’s argument that he was outnumbered by the goons and all he could do was record the crime as a journalist has been ignored. He is now waiting to appeal for bail in the Supreme Court.
Soorinje’s story has many disturbing implications for democracy and media freedom. This ruling sets a very dangerous precedent. There have undoubtedly been several cases in the recent past when the media has crossed a grey line and become, in some sense, not a chronicler of events but an uncomfortable magnification. The lumpen moral police, in particular, love the idea of spectacle: they often invite television crews before going on their brute rampage. Should the media report these incidents or should they cut off the vandals’ life breath by refusing to shoot? Should they tip off the police immediately? This must — and should — be subject to an urgent debate. But unless a journalist or media house is accused of actively exacerbating the crime — as in the Guwahati molestation case when the reporter’s role came into serious question — it is outrageous to arrest a journalist on these grounds.
Journalists are sometimes privy to secret information that can make for an exclusive story. It is understandable to expect them to report information of a bomb or a murder plot, a vandal attack or even a potential poaching incident to the police. But if this is stretched further, in the future, can they be arrested for meeting and getting an exclusive interview with a Maoist, insurgent, terrorist or underworld don because they did not tip off the police? Clearly, that would be a frightening absurdity.
In Soorinje’s case, the arguments against him already seem to have seriously skidded off the rails. According to him, he was not tipped off by the goons but by a frightened local he does not want to expose. His call records corroborate that he did not get any call from the goons. He also claims that he did try to call the police — both the Mangalore Police Commissioner (who, it turns out, was out of town) and a local inspector, Ravish Nayak. Neither picked his call or called back. Unfortunately for him, Soorinje’s calls to them, therefore, have not registered in his call records either.
The story gets more darkly ironic because Soorinje, who grew up in an agricultural family, has a track record of exposing the communal forces in Karnataka. According to his peers in the media, it is unthinkable — insupportable — that he would ever be party to such an attack. Many, in fact, suspect his arrest is driven by political vendetta: he was speaking up too often and too loud.
Last week, a small group of journalists went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest. The state home minister promised to intervene. Nothing has happened. The fact that the national media has failed to take up this story of a hinterland peer under assault is only serving to perpetuate the inaction.
Shoma Chaudhury is Managing Editor, Tehelka.
shoma@tehelka.com

Karnataka: Police has implicated the journalist who broke the Mangalore home stay attack story

From: Tehelka, 17 October 2012

KARNATAKA

Shooting the Messenger

Mangalore police has implicated the journalist who broke the Mangalore home stay attack story for orchestrating the attack. Video evidence with the journalist point fingers at the police, reports Imran Khan

In an absurd turn of events, the truth-teller is being punished for telling the truth. Naveen Sorinjee, the Kasturi TV reporter who broke the story of how Hindu Jagran Vedike (HJV) activists had beaten up and molested young boys and girls in a guest house in Mangalore, Karnataka, has shockingly been named in the chargesheet as orchestrator of the incident.

On 28 July, around 50 HJV activists barged into the Morning Mist Home Stay located on the outskirts of Mangalore and manhandled a few boys and girls celebrating a friend’s birthday. The goons not only beat up the boys but also stripped and molested girls for not adhering to ‘Indian culture’. Caught on camera by a few reporters, this expose made national headlines, forcing the state BJP government to invoke the Goonda Act against the perpetrators.

Stung by the expose, a vengeful district administration and police have now hit back by including Naveen in the chargesheet, alleging that he orchestrated the attack collaborating with the HJV activists. The magistrate court hearing the home stay attack case, has given a warrant for his arrest on 26 October. The Goonda Act has also not been invoked in the recent chargesheet, bringing back memories of the infamous Mangalore pub attack case of 2008, when Sri Ram Sene activists went on a rampage and were caught on camera. The state government had promised to come down heavily on the attackers, but three years later, the trial is yet to start. Interestingly, one of the accused in the July 2012 attack — Subhash Padil — was also part of the 2008 incident.

Naveen alleges that the local administration and the cops have been doing their best to protect the perpetrators ever since the expose. According to the chargesheet, on 28 July, the police received the information of the attack around 9 pm. However, the camera recordings show that Ravish Nayak and Manikantha Neelswany of the Mangalore Rural Police were with the attackers when the attack was taking place. Images captured on camera even show Investigating Officer TR Jagannath arriving at the spot at 7:28 pm and taking a local corporator into custody. “This means the police had information beforehand, and not as claimed in the chargesheet,” says Naveen. “There is even video evidence of the assaulters being escorted to a safe place by the police.”

Even though there were three media houses present in the incident, including channel TV 9, Sahaya TV and the newspaper Jaya Kirana, the police have registered cases only against Naveen (Accused No. 44) and Sharan of Sahaya TV. Ironically, Naveen did not even film the incident (as the cameraman had reported sick for that day) and had obtained the video from the other reporters, although his channel was the first to relay the incident under the headline “Taliban Culture”. So far, the police have arrested 27 persons in the case out of the 50 accused.

Naveen says that he has been targeted because of his consistent reportage on communal forces and human rights violations in the district. “In the past two-and-a-half years, some of my reports have caused legal action against the police and exposed communal forces,” he says.

Corroborating Naveen’s statement, TV 9 Reporter Rajesh Rao says, “Former Mangalore Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar had called him (Naveen) in the middle of the night and said that he would see to it that he would be booked under stringent laws.” Rajesh doesn’t know why his name didn’t crop up in the chargesheet.

Currently on a study tour abroad, Seemanth Kumar has been replaced by Manish Gardikar as the new Commissioner of the Mangalore Police. On being contacted, Gardikar said, since he has newly moved in, he would like to check the details of the case first before commenting on it.

Civil society groups are incensed that Naveen is being punished for doing his job; also, that by naming him in the chargesheet, a prime witness to this case is being eliminated. “They have added an additional charge of indecent display of women on him, whereas, he was exposing the indecency of the HJV and the BJP government,” says Vidya Dinker, Coordinator of Citizens Forum for Mangalore Development. ”By targeting him, they are shooting the messenger.” Naveen’s bail application is now posed for 22 October.

Imran Khan is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
imran@tehelka.com

Karnataka: The rise and rise of a Hindutva hitman

From: The Hindu
BANGALORE, July 31, 2012

The rise and rise of a Hindutva hitman
Sudipto Mondal

Subhash Padil, who led Saturday’s attack on women in Mangalore, played a key role in 2009 pub strike too

Subhash Padil, the Hindu Jagaran Vedike activist who led Saturday’s attack on women at Morning Mist Homestay in Mangalore, was a street-level activist of Sri Rama Sene when he was arrested in 2009 for his role in targeting women at a pub in the same Karnataka city. The ferocity he displayed during that attack — well-documented by television crew — gave him both stature and position in the Sene, which he had joined in 2006. He soon gained a reputation in Mangalore as a ruthless goon for hire, sought after by builders and land sharks.

On May 25 this year, a First Information Report was slapped on him along with contractors and officials of the Mangalore Special Economic Zone for assaulting a family of farmers which opposed land acquisition for the project. Four of them, including two children, had to be hospitalised.

Two days before the attack at Homestay, around 1.30 p.m. on July 26, Padil’s followers kidnapped and assaulted a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl who were travelling in a bus from Mudipu to Mangalore. The couple were later handed over to the Bunder Police who, however, took no action against the assailants.

Bajrang Dal leader Sharan Pumpwell confirms that Padil was his rival for political turf and visibility within the Sangh Parivar. They had a heated exchange around 10 days ago when Padil wanted to set up an office in Pumpwell, centre of Sharan’s power base. Padil reluctantly agreed to open the office in nearby Shivbaugh instead.

“Since that incident he wanted to prove a point. The [Saturday’s] attack was also aimed at sending out a message to rival Hindutva outfits,” claims a Parivar insider who did not want to be named.

In fact, Padil was active as early as in 2008 when Sri Rama Sene tried to enforce a shutdown in Mangalore over the Ram Sethu controversy. Padil and his men tried to stab this reporter and television journalist Agnel Rodriguez with a trident when we caught them vandalising shops whose owners defied the shutdown call.

Prasad Attavara, then a leader of Sri Rama Sene, slapped Padil publicly for this. To us, he said: “You are our friends. You [the media] and us need to work together.”

Padil was just 18 when, inspired by the Bajrang Dal’s role in the Gujarat riots, he joined the outfit in 2002, say his friends. “He used to worship a photograph of [Chief Minister] Narendra Modi that he had put up in his house,” remembers Sudatta Jain, who joined the Bajrang Dal one year before Padil did.

Childhood friends, Jain and Padil were ardent followers of Pramod Muthalik, who inducted them into the Bajrang Dal. Muthalik fell out with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2005 and quit the Bajrang Dal. Both Padil and Jain followed Muthalik when he founded the Shiv Sena’s Karnataka unit the same year.

“At that time, we felt that the Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the BJP were too soft on the question of Hindutva. We wanted to do something big,” says Jain, who now heads a trade union (Akhil Bharatiya Karmika Sene) and keeps his distance from Hindutva groups.

“I still believe in Hindutva but I don’t like violence. But Subhash was very ambitious and he was very strong physically. He wanted to be a big leader,” he says.

Padil quit the Shiv Sena along with Muthalik in 2006 over the Marathi-Belgaum issue. A few months later, he joined Muthalik’s Rashtriya Hindu Sena which subsequently morphed into Sri Rama Sene.

Despite his leading role in the 2009 pub attack, Padil felt he was overshadowed by the Sene’s then leader Prasad Attavara. When Prasad Attavara was arrested in mid-2010 along with his followers for running an international extortion racket, Padil and Jain quit the Sene and laid low for a few months.

While Jain started the trade union, Padil joined the Hindu Jagarana Vedike in February 2011 along with his trusted lieutenants Suresh Padil and Sharath Padavinangady. By doing so, he hoped to rebuild ties with the RSS and the BJP.

Keywords: Mangalore homestay attack, Hindu fundamentalism, morning mist attack, Mangalore moral policing, Subhash Padil, Hindu Jagaran Vedike, Sri Rama Sene