Bengaluru: On the third day of the joint session of legislative bodies, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and Opposition leader Siddaramaiah raised the issue of the Mangaluru police firing row on Wednesday, February 19.
At first, keeping forward his arguments, Siddaramaiah slammed the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government and the Mangaluru City Police saying, “The police clamped Section 144 and carried out firing. The police officers of Mangaluru are responsible for the firing. On the other hand, the government openly said that it cannot provide relief funds to the families of the two people, who lost their lives in the police firing.”
HDK also criticized the BSY government and said, “The state government has failed in maintaining the law and order of the state during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests. If you take the instance of the Kalaburgi district, no violent protests were reported. But still, the protesters were taken into custody and were taken to police stations. State home minister Basavaraj Bommai had video conference meeting with higher rank police officials, but what was the result of that? Literarian Ramachandra Guha was forcibly pushed into the police bus and taken into custody in Bengaluru for raising his voice against the government.”
“Moreover, the incidents that took place in Mangaluru were very disturbing. I will still stand by my words, that the lives that were lost in the Mangaluru police firing were ‘innocent’. I have all the video footage of the police firing and every clip shows the abusive nature of the police and how they have manhandled protesters and people. Everybody, including commoners and students who were simply standing at bus stops and shops, were lathi-charged by force. The stone pelting incidents were reported much later. There are also video footage which had come in electronic media, where police personnel are heard saying ‘we have fired so many times and not even one has died’. Some of the police personnel were also heard saying ‘hit them below their waste’. It is the irresponsibility of the Mangaluru Police for not having informed the people and protesters about the prohibitory orders that were already clamped on December 19, 2019,” he added.
For this, Bommai countered stating that there was no video conference that was done with the police department regarding the arrangement to control the situation during the protest.
