Saying that the state authorities had sought a ban on the PFI a number of months earlier, following the February homicide of Bajrang Dal employee Harsha Hindu, 27, within the Shivamogga area — a killing during which the state police suspected a PFI hand — Bommai mentioned, “We’ve got despatched the stories and proof essential for banning such organisations to the Centre. The method has begun. You’ll hear a call on this from the Centre on the earliest. The ban must be finished throughout the nation,”
Regardless of the broad sense in Karnataka of an impending ban on the PFI – particularly after widespread arrests of leaders of the group on September 22 – the notification that got here from the Ministry of Dwelling Affairs on September 27 took many in regulation enforcement companies abruptly.
“We knew a case was being constructed for a ban on the PFI, however there was a way that there have been not sufficient convictions by courts in crimes involving the PFI cadre in Karnataka to facilitate a direct ban on the group,” mentioned police sources who’ve been monitoring the PFI in recent times.
This yr, there have been two murders of right-wing activists, allegedly carried out by PFI cadres. Since 2006-2007, when the group got here into existence, and within the previous years, when it existed within the state because the Karnataka Discussion board for Dignity, there have been 18 main murders in 17 circumstances traced to the PFI.
There have been no convictions in any of those circumstances. As many as 12 of the circumstances are nonetheless below trial and 4 have resulted in acquittals – together with the 2016 homicide of Bajrang Dal activist Pravin Pujari, which was listed by the MHA in its September 27 notification banning the PFI.
Of the 17 killings allegedly traced to the PFI, two contain Muslim victims who have been allegedly focused on account of ethical digressions or political rivalries.
Whereas the communally torn coastal Karnataka area (Dakshina Kannada, Mangaluru and Uttara Kannada districts) has seen the utmost variety of murders — seven — linked to the PFI, cadres of the outfit have been accused of finishing up 5 murders in Mysuru, three in Hunsur, and one every in Bengaluru, Kodagu and Shivamogga.
The yr 2016 was the bloodiest, with 4 murders allegedly traced to the PFI. That was the yr that the Karnataka police first realised that the PFI, till then believed to be restricted to coastal Karnataka, had began spreading its terror to locations comparable to Mysuru and Bengaluru.
Within the months previous the ban, the Karnataka police have additionally flagged circumstances of makes an attempt to homicide and rioting allegedly involving the PFI. Rioting that occurred in Mysuru in 2011, the 2020 riots on the KG Corridor and D J Halli police stations in Bengaluru, an alleged try and homicide Congress MLA Tanveer Sait in 2019 in Mysuru, the stabbing of a youth who attended a pro-CAA rally organized by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya in 2019 in Bengaluru — these are among the many circumstances that have been flagged to central companies in current months, in keeping with police sources.
Within the coastal Karnataka area, which has witnessed bloody battles between the PFI and right-wing Hindu gangs drawn from members of the Bajrang Dal, Hindu Jagaran Vedike and different splinter teams, killings by the PFI have been preceded or adopted by assaults by right-wing gangs on Muslims and PFI members.
The 2006 homicide of the BJP chief Sukhananda Shetty in Dakshina Kananda was adopted by police ‘encounters’ during which two of the accused, Mulky Rafiq and Athiq, have been killed. A 3rd accused, Kabir, was killed by right-wing gangs.
Equally, the 2016 Praveen Pujari homicide in Kodagu was preceded by the killing of a youth Shahul Hameed, who was half of a professional Tipu Sultan rally within the area. Extra just lately, the homicide of Praveen Nettaru in Dakshina Kannada in July was preceded by the killing of B Masood and adopted by the killing of Mohammed Fazil by right-wing gangs.