Former 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.
Having given permission on December 18 to two organisations to hold protest against CAA the next day, the administration imposed prohibitory orders the very night, giving little room for participants to return, he said.
Former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy calling on former Mangaluru Mayor K. Ashraf, who was injured in Thursday’s violence during his attempts to pacify protesters, at a hospital in Mangaluru on Sunday.
Mr. Kumaraswamy said “police have 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. The eight injured are undergoing treatment in hospital; all of them are innocent and victims of brutality, he contended.
Visiting the victims’ families earlier, Mr. Kumaraswamy handed over cheques for ₹5 lakh each to the two 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 is an irony that police have registered cases against the deceased as well as the injured, he regretted.
