Congress leader and former Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake said on Saturday that the police could have controlled the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Mangaluru on December 19, which led to the death of two persons, without using excessive force.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Sorake said that there were about 150 protesters battling the police in Mangaluru. When they did not yield to lathi-charge, the police could have used tear gas to control the protesters. What was the need to have resorted to firing at the crowd? Even if the police wanted to take up firing, they could have used rubber bullets, he said.
The video clips being circulated on social media with regard to the protests showed some police personnel barging into a hospital in Mangaluru, lobbing a tear gas shell there, kicking the doors of various rooms in the hospital, and barging into the rooms. The police had used this excessive force only to please their superiors, he said.
It was surprising that though the protests in Bengaluru and Kalaburgi on the same day attracted more bigger crowds when compared with Mangaluru, the police in those two places were successful in controlling them and did not have to resort to the kind of force used in the coastal city, he said.
Mr. Sorake said that when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was in power at the Centre, it had to face protests over the Lokpal issue. But it did not stop the protests or curb the rights of the people who wanted to protest. People had a right to protest in a democracy. But now the police were trying to control the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, he said.
The police had even entered the campus of Jamia Milia Islamia University in New Delhi to curb the protests, leading to violence. Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was imposed across Karnataka to prevent the protests over the Act, Mr. Sorake said.
President of the district unit of the Congress Ashok Kumar Kodavoor and party leaders Bhaskar Rao Kidiyoor, B. Narasimhamurthy, and Harish Kini were present.
