By Ismail Zaorez
Mangaluru: Normalcy returned to Mangaluru on Monday when the curfew imposed on December 19 evening was lifted on Monday morning. People were seen thronging to grocery shops and petrol pumps after the port city saw the calm nearly three days after protesters against NRC and CAA violated section 144 imposed by police, prompting the department to resort to lathi charge and firing to ‘control’ the crowd.
Jaleel, Nousheen killed by cops
The normalcy however has returned to the city at the cost of two lives of youths Abdul Jaleel and Nousheen who were killed by the cops during the protests. The police firing incident was severely criticised by various social and political outfits across the state. It only added fuel to the matter when Karnataka CM Yediyurappa during his visit to Mangaluru on Friday clarified that his government had not ordered firing instructions to the police.
Dr. PS Harsha, the Mangaluru Police Commissioner is currently under-fire and is said to be the man behind releasing the shooting orders to his department’s personnel. Various local leaders and organisations have called for the top cop’s sacking and suspension over the row.
Several videos from Thursday’s incident has since been going viral on local social media sites framing police personnel as the mafia on killing spree.
In one of the video, a local Police Inspector Shantaram Kundar is heard asking his personnel on the toll of causalities and is unhappy for not killing more protesters. In another video extracted from the Highland Hospital of the city the police team can be seen barging into the hospital and ransacking the corridor and ICU while also firing tear gas inside the hospital which reportedly resulted in causing inconvenience to several patients.
For the Highland Hospital incident, police gave the same template that of Delhi Police when they were questioned about barging into the Library of Jamia University in Delhi. They were reportedly looking for rioters at the hospital who they thought had accompanied those who had sustained injuries in police action at the protesting site.
Police yet to answer several questions
The police however is yet to find answers to several questions taken out from the flaws and loopholes in their story.
According to the police’s version there were about 7000 protesters and the department resorted to Lathi Charge and Firing to control the angry crowd. But if a statement of prominent local Muslim leader and DYFI Karnataka State President Muneer Katipalla is to be believed there were less than 1000 protesters at the site and the police could’ve handled situation in a better way.
“There are extremist elements on both the sides. But what provoked police to fire without warning need to be investigated. There were not more than 1,000 people against the claims of police who are saying there were 7,000 people. The police could have handled the situation in a better way,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
Another question that is being raised is, if the government did not order shooting the protesters down, then who did? The police commissioner reportedly sought help from local Muslim leaders to pacify the protesters and urged them to cooperate with police. Several Muslim leaders joined forces with police and were trying to pacify the protesters when police started firing out of nowhere. If the top cop himself had approached the local leaders for help, who ordered firing immediately?
Why did the police team turned rioters at the Highland Hospital, and if it was looking for rioters at the hospital how many did they arrest from their after firing tearing gas, ransacking the hospital and causing inconvenience to the patients?
A local journalist was also manhandled by the police during the protest who later reported that his ID card was snatched by a police officer before charging at him when he flashed his ID card. This also raises the question on why the police had to physically assault a journalist who was only covering the event.
Another important question raised by the kin of a person killed in the firing was why no protester was shot below the knee or waist as is the police supposed to do as the first resort of firing. Instead the police did not even fire in the air as a warning to the protesters, another move the cops are supposed to be doing before taking people on target.
What action has been initiated against Inspector Shantaram Kundar who was heard saying “let one or two of them die” when DCP Arunangshu Giri asked the firing team to stop firing?
Normalcy
With normalcy back into the city, the police will have to address all the questions at the earliest to avoid public ire the next time any such protests takes place, if not the situation will only get worst in the city which already bears the tag of being “sensitive” in police files.
Ismail Zaorez’s email id is izaorez@gmail.com