Bengaluru: It took more than two hours for police to control a 2,000- strong mob that ransacked a school, set fire to vehicles and indulged in stone pelting in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
They were protesting an alleged molestation of a 7-year-old girl student.
The police lobbed teargas shells and resorted to lathi-charge to dispel the raging crowd that was growing in numbers. Several other police personnel, including an assistant commissioner, were wounded in the attack in Bangalore’s Hosaguddahalli that has a sizeable number of Muslims. Media persons too were injured in the melee.
The police had to whisk away physical education teacher Ramakrishna, 50, who was beaten mercilessly by the mob. The victim was accused of molesting the Muslim girl at the school.
City Police Commissioner B N Reddi and top police officers rushed to the spot.
The alleged incident took place on Tuesday and the mob, drawn from neighboring localities, turned up at the school the following day.
The police suspect an organized communal angle to the incident but said they would first investigate. Local residents and sections in the media believe the incident is “concocted.” Sources who do not wish to be named said Ramakrishna only kindly asked the girl to unveil her burkha to facilitate easier physical training together with other students.
Hosagudadahalli has seen several incidents of sectarian violence over the past decade. It is barely three kilometers away from a Catholic church that saw bomb blasts a decade ago. The victims of the church bomb blasts have already been convicted and sentenced to prison. The locality is known to be a communally sensitive.
The administration has deployed a heavy contingent of police men who are currently patrolling the area. The administration has imposed section 144 in the Criminal Penal Code that prevents assembly of more than four people until Thursday.
Following a complaint by the girl’s parents, the police have registered a case against Ramakrishna.
Some people in the city dismiss the incident as media hype over rape and molestation. “Many of the incidents later were disproved and had either communal of self-interest angles. Knee-jerk reactions from readers based on media reports have created fears of considering Bangalore an unsafe for children studying in city schools,” one of them told Matters India.