K. Raghupati Bhat, MLA, said on Tuesday that he opposed the suspension of sub-inspector of Udupi Town police station Ananthapadmanabha by Superintendent of Police Nisha James for not reporting an incident involving the youth of two communities which took place here on November 2.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Bhat said Ms. James had on November 11 suspended Mr. Ananthapadmanabha without proper reason. “As an MLA, I condemn this suspension. If Mr. Ananthapadmanabha was involved in any corruption, he could have been suspended,” he said.
Mr. Bhat said that about 10 days ago, a youth belonging to one community was misbehaving with a young woman belonging to another community at Bhujanga Park here. The people who were around him assaulted him. The police called the parents of both the young man and the young woman and the man too did not file any case. The sub-inspector warned him and let him off.
After about four days, the young man, had on “someone’s prompting” registered a complaint of assault. “Naturally, Ms. James registered a complaint. I am not against his lodging a complaint as it has been done as per law,” he said.
But on November 11, Ms. James suspended Mr. Ananthapadmanabha on the grounds that he had not informed her of the incident. “Mr. Ananthapadmanabha, who has been serving here for the last three years, was not appointed because of me. He was appointed here by the previous MLA. But he is a well-behaved person and he has been suspended,” he said.
“I called Ms. James yesterday [Monday] and asked her why he had been suspended. She said Mr. Ananthapadmanabha had not registered an FIR soon after the incident and had not informed senior officers of the case. If the Superintendent of Police can suspend Mr. Ananthapadmanabha because of not informing her of a case, then I can point at several cases of matka, gambling, and other such activities not being reported to the Superintendent of Police by her subordinate officers,” Mr. Bhat said.
“Mr. Ananthapadmanabha had not registered the case because the incident happened on the eve of Ayodhya verdict and he wanted to maintain harmony between two communities as a responsible sub-inspector,” Mr. Bhat claimed.
Asked on whose pressure Ms. James might have done so, Mr. Bhat said, “I feel she has taken the step due to the pressure from a community. Now due to the Superintendent of Police’s step, Mr. Ananthapadmanabha’s promotion has got affected. I have informed the Inspector-General of Police and Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai about it and urged them to revoke the suspension and that sub-inspector should be put in charge of his previous post of Udupi Town police station.”
Pramod Madhwaraj, Congress leader and former Minister, on Tuesday supported Mr. Bhat’s stand on revoking the suspension of Mr. Ananthapadmanabha.
In response to Mr. Bhat’s tweet that the suspension of Mr. Ananthapadmanabha by Ms. James was wrong and he had spoken to Mr. Bommai, Mr. Madhwaraj responded in his tweet by saying: “I support your stand. The sub-inspector was posted to Udupi during my tenure and I have spoken to the higher-ups in the Home Department to revoke his suspension. He is quite a good officer.”
