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Karnataka polls: Delhi court order on IM operatives brings spotlight on Bhatkal
A Delhi court last month ordered to frame charges against 11 men – all alleged operatives of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen– including its co-founder Yasin Bhatkal
The decision by a Delhi court last month to frame charges against 11 men – all alleged operatives of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) – has turned the attention once again to the quaint Karnataka fishing town of Bhatkal, which jumped into the headlines roughly two decades ago over a string of terror cases and bomb blasts.
Located in Uttara Kannada district, Bhatkal’s association with IM founders Yasin and Riyaz Bhatkal brought the town infamy. But even before that, the town would regularly be roiled by communal clashes and sectarian killings that would polarise the region’s population, roughly 60% Hindu and 40% Muslim.
Electorally, though, the record is more mixed. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the seat in 2018 but in 2013, the constituency was won by an independent candidate who later joined the Congress. In 2008, the Congress won the seat. While the Congress has named its candidate for the May 10 Karnataka assembly polls, the BJP is yet to announce its candidate list.
“BJP will win no matter what. Even the candidates know that, so they are putting more effort into getting a ticket than fighting the election itself,” said a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) functionary, unwilling to be named. A Congress leader countered him, saying the “anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP in the state would have an impact in Bhatkal”.
From the BJP side, there are three contenders -- incumbent lawmaker Sunil Nayak, senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Govid Nayak and local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary Ishawar Nayak. Sunil became an MLA for the first time in 2018 but some sections of the party object to his candidature because of his family’s previous links to the Janata Dal (Secular).
Sunil is, however, confident about getting the ticket and said he was working for the rights of Hindus. On Wednesday, Sunil said that police cases against 78 Hindu activists for rioting at the Town Municipal Council building in 2017 in the city were withdrawn.
The BJP’s political rise in the region began in the 1990s, especially in the communally sensitive southern coastal parts. GU Bhat, a senior journalist from Uttara Kannada district, said Bhatkal was always communally sensitive, but a turning point came on April 10, 1996, when a popular doctor, DU Chittaranjan, who was also a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member and the first BJP lawmaker from the seat, was killed in his home.
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“On the day Chittaranjan was assassinated inside his house, he had reached home around 8pm. He watched the news before having dinner. Just as he got up from his seat after his wife called him for dinner, someone shot him from behind through the window. He died on the spot. It was this murder that divided the Muslim and Hindu communities in the town,” said Bhat.
The killing happened three years after major communal riots ,spanning over nine months, was reported from Bhatkal, in which 72 people died. “His murder divided the Muslim and Hindu communities in the town further and the division is visible even today,” Bhat said.
According to a senior intelligence officer who has worked in Uttara Kannada, the opposition started from the Muslim youth, many of whom worked in the Gulf countries in the mid-1980s and had made money. “The Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bhatkal soon witnessed the influence of international players, who tried to support the opposition against the rise of Hindutva there,” the officer said.
From this opposition emerged Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri and Mohammed Ahmed Siddibappa, popularly known as Riyaz Bhatkal and Yasin Bhatkal, in late 2000s. “When their name started getting associated with terrorism, Bhatkal town itself became a place of interest for the intelligence agencies,” said the officer.
In 2008, the Muslim and the Namdari community (largest Hindu community in Bhatkal) set aside their difference and inked a political pact – backing JD Nayak of the Congress in state polls that year and a Muslim candidate in the next. “The deal was that in the first election (i.e 2008) a Hindu candidate will be fielded and both communities would vote for him. In the next election in 2013, as per the deal, a Muslim candidate was to be fielded but it did not happen. It not only ended that pact but also created mistrust,” said Haneef Shabab, the former general secretary of a local Muslim body.
In 2013, Munkala Subba Vaidya, who hailed from the fishing community, won as an independent and subsequently joined the Congress. In 2018, he lost to Sunil. Vaidya is again trying for a Congress ticket and is hopeful that the Congress will win.
He said in the 2018 election, there was unhappiness against the Congress over some murders of Hindu men. “The Paresh Mesta death case, which the BJP projected to be a murder, turned out to be an accidental death. These false campaigns affected our chances, even then the margin was around 6,000 votes. People are fed up with the local MLA, who hasn’t done any work and I am available to everyone,” Vaidya said.
Another senior Congress leader in Bhatkal said that unlike other parts of coastal Karnataka, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) – the political wing of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) -- is not strong in Bhatkal, which means the Muslim votes of the Congress won’t be divided.
On the ground, locals say that the BJP holds a numerical advantage. Qamararudin, 37, a local trader, said that Muslims are concentrated in Bhatkal town, and Hindus, mostly Namdharis, in rural areas. “The strained ties between the communities continue even today. Some goodwill has been restored but polarisation in voting continues,” he said.
A senior local journalist said the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) need to expand their core vote banks. “The result will depend on what sort of caste combination happens when candidates of all parties are announced,” he said.
