The victims and the media personnel accompanying the attackers have refuted the claims of police that they were in the dark about the attack.
A friend of a victim of the attack at the house said he saw a police jeep parked 100 m away when the attackers entered the premises. “I was driving towards the house to join my friends at the party. When I was a few meters away, two vehicles overtook my vehicle and went towards the homestay. By the time I reached the venue, my friends had been assaulted. A police jeep was already near the gate and the police had not bothered to go inside,” the victim’s friend said. “It’s a pre-planned attack,” he added.
A television reporter named in the case said vedike activist Subash Padil told him that they had intimated the police about the vedike’s protest at the “Home Stay”.
“The protesters reached the stop before the police could come,” he said. Another reporter said he had called Mangalore Rural Police Inspector on the latter’s official mobile phone to inform him about the protest.
“But the inspector did not answer the call,” the reporter said.