Former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday demanded immediate suspension of officials responsible for Thursday’s police firing in Mangaluru and booking appropriate cases against them.
“There is no need for an inquiry; it is a clear case of police atrocity,” Mr. Kumaraswamy told reporters after visiting the bereaved families of two victims of violence and injured persons at hospitals. The Chief Minister should also drop the Home Minister, he demanded.
The police brutality appeared to be the handiwork of the “parallel government” in the coast being run by Kalladka Prabhakara Bhat, the former Chief Minister alleged and demanded to know who were the officers who met Mr. Bhat on the eve of violence. Having given permission on December 18 to two organisations to hold protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act the next day, the administration imposed prohibitory orders the very night giving little room for participants to return, he said.
Mr. Kumaraswamy charged that police had been “concocting stories” of attack on police station, stone-pelting by protesters etc. to justify their action. On the other hand, a police inspector was on record regretting no one died in the firing. This is nothing but police brutality, he said. About eight injured were undergoing treatment at hospital; all of them were innocent and victims of brutality, he said.
Earlier, Mr. Kumaraswamy handed over cheques for ₹5 lakh each to the two victims’ families. The party would also bear the treatment expenses of the injured if the government did not do so and plan their rehabilitation, he said. It was an irony that police had registered cases against the deceased as well as the injured, he regretted.
