Karnataka: Since 2017, 3,400 people held for assaulting 380 police personnel

BENGALURU: No less than 380 police personnel have been attacked in Karnataka from January 2017 to mid-2022, leading to arrests of more than 3,400 people, reports Chethan Kumar. That's on average nine arrests for every cop attacked. The attack on police has been classified under three categories: During riots, communal riots and incidents involving 'rowdies'.
On September 23, police inspector Sreemanth Illal attached to a station in Kalaburagi was assaulted by a gang of 30-40 ganja smugglers near a village on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border.He was leading a team of police raiding a spot marijuana (ganja) was illegally cultivated.

Severely injured, Illal was air-lifted to Bengaluru's Manipal hospital on September 26, where he is still undergoing treatment.
Illal is among the tens of police personnel who sustain injuries after such attacks in the state. In about five years, nearly 400 police personnel have been attacked, leading to arrests of more than 3,400 people. That's on average nine arrests for every cop attacked.
According to data between January 2017 and mid-2022 accessed from the home department, the constabulary was the most attacked - 96 head constables and 128 constables - followed by officers ranked higher than sub-inspector (107), while 49 SIs also came under attacks.
DG&IGP Praveen Sood told TOI: "Police have an inherent risk that's unique to our department. While we deal with many law-abiding citizens, we also deal with a lot of criminals, exposing ourselves to danger routinely. We are trained to handle such situations and are in control in most cases, but sometimes our personnel too come under attack, like the recent incident involving an inspector from Bidar. But luckily we've not had too many such cases in the recent past, nor have there been deaths."
The attack on police has been classified under three categories: During riots, communal riots and incidents involving 'rowdies'.
While there have been 869 riots, 242 communal riots and 1,320 incidents involving 'rowdies' in the said period, there is no specific break-up of each of these categories where cops came under attack. However, overall, the department has booked 141 cases - across all three categories - involving 380 police personnel who were attacked.
Analysis of the cases shows the most cases (69) and the highest number of such police personnel (138) are from Bengaluru. While Uttara Kannada has 62 of the cops who were attacked, it has seen only nine cases. Mangaluru, with 15 cases, has seen 20 cops injured.
Haveri, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai's home district, has 23 injured cops making it the third highest, but doesn't feature among the top districts so far as number of cases go.
In terms of arrests, the highest number is in Uttara Kannada, which accounts for nearly a quarter (802) out of the total 3,489 arrests. Mangaluru, with 501, has seen the second-most arrests followed by Bengaluru (493), Davanagere (465) and Kalaburagi (255).
Further, out of the 869 riots, 412 are in Dakshina Kannada, 113 in Chikkamagaluru and 83 in Belagavi. Bengaluru saw only nine. Shivamogga tops the communal riots cases list with 57, followed by Dakshina Kannada (46) and Bagalkot (26).