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Bengaluru: Five held in fresh case of moral policing, later granted bail
Among the group of students were three male students, including two Christians and one Muslim, and three Muslim female students. One of the students was injured after someone tried to drag him out of the vehicle, said Mangaluru police.
Five members of a Hindu right-wing organisation were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly heckling and harassing a group of medical students at Suratkal in Dakshina Kannada district on Sunday, Mangaluru police said, adding they were later released on bail.
According to the police, the incident took place on Sunday evening when six MBBS students from KS Hegde Medical College were driving back from Malpe beach, located around 60 km from Mangaluru city. As they were returning, some members of a Hindu right-wing organisation waylaid their vehicle, hurled abuses, and even tried to assault them, police said, adding that a purported video of the incident went viral on social media.
In the 1-min video, they could be purportedly heard asking the woman students why they were travelling with Muslim men. Among the group of students were three male students, including two Christians and one Muslim, and three Muslim female students. One of the students was injured after someone tried to drag him out of the vehicle, said police.
HT cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video.
Mangaluru city police commissioner N Shashi Kumar identified the accused as Preetham Shetty, Arshith, Srinivas, Rakesh, and Abhishek. All of them are members of the Bajrang Dal, Kumar added.
They were booked under sections 341(Punishment for wrongful restraint), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code. They were later released on bail from the police station, an official said.
In their statement to the police, the suspects said they stopped the car as they got information that the group of boys “misbehaved” with girls. “When we investigated the matter, no such thing was found. All belonged to the same class and studied in the second year in their professional courses,” said Kumar.
Police said they suspect the students were followed by the group, who saw them go to the beach earlier. After following them for a distance, the fringe elements attacked them, police said.
Traffic inspector, Sharif, who reached the spot first, intervened and stopped the attackers from harming the students, said police.
In a similar incident on September 17, two youngsters stopped a Muslim biker, who was dropping his female colleague from another religion. The duo assaulted the biker while abusing the woman near Dairy Circle on Hosur Road in Bengaluru.
