Remember Karnataka’s Hijab controversy that was followed by a series of protests by both Hindu and Muslim fringe groups, a murder in Shivamogga. It also led to politicians giving communal colour to a road rage episode in Bengaluru, in which a youth was stabbed to death.
The CCTV footage of this stabbing by youths in skull caps went viral leading to anger and sharp reactions on social media. No sooner the gruesome murder of Chandru V started doing rounds in social media. The BJP leaders jumped and said the boy was murdered as he had refused to speak Urdu.
While BJP national General Secretary C T Ravi was the first to float the theory, it was seconded by Home Minister Araga Gnyanedra, although he did say that these were preliminary information.
Minutes later, the then City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant tweeted that it was a case of road rage and didn’t involve any communal angle.
This led to a massive war of words between BJP and the Congress, so much so, that political leaders started paying condolences to Chandru at his house. There were rumours that political parties were giving money to Chandru’s mother to make statements that suit them.
The BJP leaders even attacked the city police commissioner.
A month later, Pant was booted out of city top post and it is an open secret that he paid the price for not toeing the party line, although Chief Minister Basavaj Bommai has said that let the law take its own course.
Three months later, now the CID has now filed chargesheet, in which it states that it was indeed a case of road rage.
A 22 year-old food delivery boy was murdered in Bengaluru in April over a petty street altercation that broke out after verbal abuse and staring, states the chargesheet.
The chargesheet filed by the police on 30 June, which has now come light laid out the sequence of events leading to the murder of Chandru V, a resident of Bengaluru’s Jaibheem Nagar, off Mysuru Road, on 5 April.
At 2.15 am in the night, Chandru V and his friend Simon Raj set out to eat a chicken roll in Chamrajpet only to find the eatery was closed. They then stopped at a nearby bakery when Shahid alias ‘Narrow’ passed by and asked Simon why he had abused him, the chargesheet read.
Raj denied abusing him and asked him to go away. As Raj walked into the bakery, Shahid picked an argument with Chandru. Raj walked out of the bakery and pushed Shahid, making him fall.
An angry Shahid asked them to call anyone they wanted for a fight. Shahid then asked Raj to speak in Urdu as he did not know Kannada, the chargesheet added.