Offensive Facebook post leads to riots in Bengaluru, three dead

Around 700 youths attack police station, torch vehicles and assault policemen

Three people were killed in riots triggered by an offensive Facebook post on Tuesday night in Bengaluru. Around 700 youths attacked a police station, torched vehicles, assaulted cops, and tried to set the residence of a local Congress member of legislature (MLA) on fire, eyewitnesses said.

The person suspected of putting up the post is the nephew of the MLA, Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy.

“There is a youth who is related to a local politician,’’ Maulana Mohammed Maqsood Imran Rasheedi, a top Muslim religious leader in Bengaluru, told agencies. He said the youth had posted a derogatory message on social media preceded by ‘’I am not secular’’, that angered people. "We have appealed to people to maintain peace and not resort to any kind of violence," he added.

Soon after the post, which was put up at around noon on Monday, Whatsapp groups began to be formed. The elders in the community, worried about the possibility of the matter getting escalated, asked the police to arrest the individual. He was later put in jail. The suspect has been involved in several such cases in the past, police sources said.

By Tuesday evening, the mob was ready. First they went to the residence of the MLA from the Pulakeshi Nagar (SC) constituency, which is part of the DJHalli police station where the incident happened. Since the MLA had prior information about the attack, he had disappeared from his home.

The mob broke the gates of Murthy's house and also tried to set his house alight. After this, the youth proceeded to the police station, possibly having been informed that the suspect was lodged there. They set fire to the police station, vehicles in the compound, and everything else that came their way.

The Commissioner of Police (CP) had to lead a band of men to defend the station and when the crowd moved towards them with iron rods, the police resorted to firing.

The actual attack is being attributed to young men who are members of the Popular Front of India (PFI), a radical Islamic group launched in Kerala in 2006. It was formed after merging three Muslim organisations floated after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 — the National Development Front of Kerala, Karnataka Forum for Dignity and Manitha Neethi Pasari of Tamil Nadu.  

However, there is no evidence that PFI was behind the attack. It was clearly not a spontaneous assault.

What is mystifying is why the MLA was made a target. Murthy is a hugely popular, Dalit leader of the Congress who won his constituency in the 2018 assembly elections by a margin of 81,000 votes, a massive margin by assembly election standards.

The constituency has a large Muslim population and Murthy has in the past helped Muslim leaders out in cases of land disputes. He is well-liked in the community, possibly one reason for his huge victory margin.

The Congress in Karnataka was at a loss to explain why or how the community turned against him.

State leader Dinesh Gundu Rao appealed to people not to take the law into their hands. "If anybody has written anything objectionable the law will take its course and there are so many ways in a democracy to fight for justice," Rao tweeted. "But violence is not the answer.’’

State Home Minister BS Bommai has announced that not only will the state government conduct an enquiry, but damages will also be recovered from the property of those charged with the crime. Although the situation is now quiet, the episode has left Bengaluru, not known for communal violence, badly shaken.