Two held for killing Hindu man over interfaith relationship in Karnataka: Police

The victim, identified as Vijaya Kamble (25) was stabbed and attacked with an iron rod in Wadi town in Kalaburagi on Monday night, said the police. The Hindu man was a resident of Bheema Nagar Layout and is the third person to be killed over an interfaith relationship in Karnataka in the past year.

Kalaburagi police have arrested two 19-year-old men for killing a Hindu man who was in a relationship with his sister, officials said on Thursday. The accused belonged to the Muslim community, police said.

Kalaburagi police have arrested two 19-year-old men for killing a Hindu man who was in a relationship with his sister, officials said on Thursday. The accused belonged to the Muslim community, police said. (Agencies/Representative use)

The victim, identified as Vijaya Kamble (25) was stabbed and attacked with an iron rod in Wadi town in Kalaburagi on Monday night, said the police. Kamble was a resident of Bheema Nagar Layout and is the third person to be killed over an interfaith relationship in Karnataka in the past year.

Kalaburagi Superintendent of Police, Isha Pant, identified the accused as Shahabuddin (19) and Nawaz (19).

“Kamble was in a relationship with Shahabuddin’s older sister. The family had come to know about the relationship, and since it was an interfaith relationship, there was resentment. It over this displeasure that Shahabuddin murdered him,” said Pant, adding that the accused have been booked under section 304 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

According to the SP, the murder took place at around 8.30 pm on Monday near a bridge in Wadi railway station. Shahabuddin and Nawaz found Kamble on the railway bridge at night, and there was an argument, during which they attacked him using a knife and an iron rod.

“There were multiple injuries on his neck, and there were hit marks on the head. He died on the spot. From the investigation so far, we have found that the attack wasn’t pre-planned, but we are in the process of finding more evidence,” she said.

After the incident, security has been beefed up in the district, especially in the Wadi town, on Thursday. According to the police, there are some sensitive areas in town and additional police forces have been deployed there.

In October last year, after a 24-year-old Muslim man’s decapitated body was found on a railway track in Karnataka’s Belagavi district, 10 people, including the parents of a woman he was in a relationship with, were arrested for his murder. Police first registered a case of unnatural death when Arbaz Mullah’s body was found on September 28, 2021.

The Belagavi Police said the woman’s parents, Eerappa and Susheela Kumbhar, and Maharaja Nagappa alias Pundalik Mutgekar, a member of the Hindu group Sri Ram Sena Hindustan, are the prime suspects in the murder.

In a statement, police added the parents opposed the woman’s relationship with Mullah and approached Nagappa to end it. But the woman remained adamant. Police said the parents met Nagappa multiple times, and when Mullah refused to end the relationship, they threatened him. As the threats did not work, Nagappa allegedly hired seven contract killers to kill Mullah on September 28. The killers dumped his body on the railway tracks.

Less than a month after Mullah’s murder in Belagavi, Ravi Nimbargi, a resident of Balaganur village in Sindagi, was murdered allegedly by the family of a Muslim woman he was in a relationship with. The body of Nimbargi, who went missing on October 21 2021, was fished out of a well three days later. Two persons, the woman’s maternal uncle and younger brother, have been arrested for the murder.