Preventing communal flare-up in the State must be the top priority for the police, said Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy who chaired the annual review meeting with top police officials across Karnataka on Friday. It was the first such meeting since the new government took charge. Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister G. Parameshwara said the police had been instructed not to spare anybody who provokes communal violence.
Both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister addressed the media after the meeting. To a specific question on whether groups such as Sri Rama Sene, Sanatan Sanstha, and Popular Front of India were on the radar and whether the government would recommend banning them, Mr. Kumaraswamy said they would consider such steps “if such groups failed to heed warnings twice”. “I have not instructed the police on any specific group, but we will not spare any of them,” he said.
In the closed-door meeting before he addressed the media, Mr. Kumaraswamy is learnt to have expressed his anger over three police personnel being arrested in the murder case of a cattle trader in Udupi district recently. Sources said he took to the police leadership in coastal Karnataka to task and asked them to ensure that the personnel remain neutral.
Sources said he also cited the recent case in Vijayapura district where four policemen have been accused of a fake encounter and “organising a murder” for money, and warned the officials that nobody would be spared should they collude with anti-social elements or the underworld. Mr. Kumaraswamy and Dr. Parameshwara both promised senior officials that there would be stability in their tenure.
Gauri probe
The Chief Minister is learnt to have appreciated the work of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police probing the murder of Gauri Lankesh. He later defended them when asked about allegations made by Hindutva groups of illegal detentions and torture. “There are many who were detained, questioned and later let off after it was proven they were not involved. ... The police are doing their job within the framework of the law,” he said.
