A city court here on Monday acquitted Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik and 25 others who were among the 30 accused in the pub attack case in the city in 2009. R. Manjunatha, Second Judicial Magistrate First Class, passed the orders.
According to the charge sheet, young men and women guests at the Amnesia pub in the central Mangaluru were attacked in the night on January 24, 2009.
The others acquitted included Subash Padil and Sharath Padavinangady, who are also accused in the 2012 home stay attack case in the city, Prasad Attavar, the then vice-president of State unit of Sri Rama Sene and legal adviser of the Sene, Mr. Dinakara Shetty.
2 accused dead
Of the remaining four accused, two died during the course of the trial and two are absconding and the case is pending against them.
Thirty were arrested after Rajashekar, the pub’s representative, filed a case over the attack on the guests at the pub in Hampankatta. The pub doesn’t exist now.
Public prosecutor Chetan Kumar examined 15 witnesses, including investigating officers Vinay Gaonker and Umesh Shet. The advocate for accused Asha Nayak said the complainant, eyewitnesses and the male victims did not support the case of the prosecution. The police did not cite female victims as witnesses, she said.
The Magistrate acquitted 26 accused of charges under Sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 448 (trespass), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (insult intended to provoke breach of peace), 505 (false statement), 354 (assault on a woman with an intention to outrage her modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Reacting to the judgement, Mr. Muthalik said, at a press conference here on Monday, that justice had been done to him in this case. He said that he was not part of the attack. “The then BJP government fixed me in this case to torture me mentally, physically and economically. The present Congress government has continued to harass me,” he alleged.
Mr. Muthalik said he was contemplating legal action against the State government to seek compensation for his “wrongful” prosecution.
