SHIVAMOGGA: Four days after communal violence rocked Ragigudda in Shivamogga after stones were thrown at an Eid Milad procession, a team of BJP functionaries led by state party president Nalin Kumar Kateel will visit the area and “gather information” on the incident.
The ‘fact-finding team’ will include former ministers KS Eshwarappa, CN Ashwath Narayan and Araga Jnanendra besides Shivamogga MP BY Raghavendra. Police have arrested some 60 people so far in connection with the incident and filed 24 FIRs.
Jagadish Karanth and Ullas of Hindu Jagaran Samiti claimed the incident was a display of “Muslim fundamentalism”, but it “wasn’t a shock” to them.
“Ragigudda was a preplanned attack as miscreants targeted houses and planned to kill Hindu youths,” Ullas said. “It was designed on the lines of the DJ and KG Halli riots in Bengaluru. Shivamogga SP GK Mithun Kumar has covered up facts and arrested Hindu youths.”
Earlier, speaking to reporters in Mysuru, BJP MP Pratap Simha said Hinduism “has no culture of stone-pelting”. “We all know who is behind the Shivamogga stone-pelting incident. It was CM Siddaramaiah’s soft approach towards anti-national elements that resulted in the violence in Shivamogga,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Internal security division (ISD) of Karnataka police launched a parallel investigation into the incident. An ISD DySP grade officer visited the trouble-hit area and interacted with residents.
They also focused on the loss sustained by the public during the violence. Meanwhile, the Shivamogga district police continued with prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC. Curbs have been in place since Sunday night.