Team News Riveting
Bengaluru, August 12
Karnataka government would take a leaf out of Uttar Pradesh’s book in dealing with the rioters damaging the public property.
“The state would recover the costs of the assets destroyed — much like Uttar Pradesh which made a similar move after clashes over the Citizenship Amendment Act earlier this year,” Karnataka minister CT Ravi said.
Three people died in police firing after violence erupted in Bengaluru on Tuesday over an alleged derogatory social media post by a Congress leader’s relative against a community.
The police opened fire after angry mobs attacked the house of Pulakeshinagar MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy and went berserk in DJ Halli and KG Halli police station areas of Bengaluru.
“I think it was a planned riot. Within an hour of a post on social media thousands of people gathered and damaged 200-300 vehicles and the MLA’s residence,” the minister said. Sources said that over 50 people have got injured in the violent clashes.
The police had arrested 110 people including Congress leader’s relative Naveen in connection with the incident. The violence that erupted on Tuesday night continued till the wee hours of Wednesday, apparently prompted by the ‘communally sensitive’ online post.
The recovery from the rioters would be another major punishment. The UP government had started the process and a few rioters had paid the dues.
The UP government is looking forward to recovering more than 1.5 crore from 57 reported rioters across the state of Uttar Pradesh who indulged in vandalism, violence, and arson in the name of anti-citizenship amendment act (CAA) protests.
The UP governor, Anandiben Patel had promulgated the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Ordinance, 2020 on 15 March 2020.
The ordinance aims at “recovery of damage to public or private property during hartal, bandhs, riots, protests etc through those accused (named merely in Police Reports and not yet convicted through claim tribunals with no judicial review by any other court. The Supreme Court of India had said in 2007 that a “strong law” was needed to deal with the damage to property during political protests.
