In yet another case of ‘moral policing’ in coastal Karnataka, a group chased a team of college students, dragged two of them out of a bus, kidnapped and assaulted one of them before the police rescued him here on Tuesday. This incident comes within a month of a group confronting and threatening three college students at a mall here.
Police have arrested five persons and registered a case against a 16-year-old boy, who was part of the group, in connection with the Tuesday incident. They have been included in the rowdy list after the victim, a final year Economics student of Mangalore University, filed a complaint with Konaje police.
The complainant, along with four other classmates (one boy and three girls), visited Ullal in the forenoon on Tuesday as there was no class. Of them, a boy and a girl belonged to one religious faith and a boy and two girls to another. After visiting Bhagawati temple and Sayyid Madani Darga, they went to Ullal beach.
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As they were walking on the beach, a six-member group kept following them. Frightened, the students boarded a bus to return to the university. As they had to change the bus at Thokkottu to catch another bus, the group followed them in an autorickshaw and dragged the boys out of the bus at Thokkottu and questioned why they were accompanying the girls.
While his classmate, who sensed trouble escaped, the group dragged the complainant into the autorickshaw and drove away towards Konaje campus of the university after beating him up.
A police officer, who was on patrol in the university area, spotted seven persons in the autorickshaw and brought them to the station where the student narrated the incidents. Meanwhile, the girls had dispersed from Thokkottu.
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The police have arrested Savan (22), Suvan (21), Sunil (23), Prajwal (23) and Chandrashekar (30). The teenager has been produced before the Juvenile Justice Board.