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3 held for damaging restaurant of hijab petitioner’s father
The three men had damaged the restaurant windows and slapped the student’s brother, who was present at the spot
The Udupi police on Wednesday arrested three persons for damaging the restaurant owned by the father of one of six girls from the Udupi government PU college, who filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court against the hijab ban, officials said.
All three suspects were later released on bail, they added.
Udupi Superintendent of Police N. Vishnuvardhan said the arrested men were identified as Deepak, 25, Manoj, 25, and Sanil Raj, 26. The three men had damaged the restaurant windows and slapped the student’s brother, who was present at the spot. “Cases have been filed under section 143 (Unlawful Assembly), 147 (Rioting), 323 (Assault), 504 (Intentional insult) and 506 (Criminal intimidation) Indian Penal Code,” he said.
The student on Tuesday alleged that her 20-year-old brother was assaulted and her father’s restaurant in Udupi vandalised on Monday night. “My brother was brutally attacked by a mob. Just because I continue to stand for My #Hijab which is MY RIGHT. Our property was ruined as well. Why? Can’t I demand my right? Who will be their next victim? I demand action to be taken against the Sangh Parivar goons,” the girl tweeted.
According to the complaint, several people surrounded the restaurant during closing time and struck up a conversation with the girl’s brother. Soon after the group turned violent and began attacking him. The gang also broke the windowpanes of the restaurant in Udupi’s Malpe.
Masood Manna, a member of the Campus Front of India (CFI), a student group associated with the Popular Front of India (PFI), had claimed in a tweet that a group of 150 people attacked the girl’s brother. A police officer, however, said this number is exaggerated. The police, citing the medico-legal case, said that there were no injuries to the girl’s brother.
According to police, the incident took place around 9.30 pm on Monday, when a group of fewer than ten people gathered outside the restaurant and got into an argument with the student’s brother. During this argument, Deepak slapped the brother, and the group broke the windows.
A senior officer of the Udupi police said that the girl’s father had recently given an interview on the hijab issue. An edited clip of the interview, presented out of context, has been doing rounds on social media for the past few days. It is suspected that the attack was a result of the video. Since the student’s father was not at the restaurant, her brother was attacked, said the officer.
The attack came nearly 10 days after parents of the six Muslim students, who were the first to oppose the ban on the hijab, filed a police complaint that personal details of their children were being shared on social media, amid the escalating row over wearing hijab in the state’s educational institutions.
On February 25, the Karnataka unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also shared a court document on social media that listed the residential addresses of the petitioners in the Karnataka high court case. After coming under criticism, the party subsequently deleted its tweets in English and Kannada.
