Mangaluru City Police nabs 16 persons for disrupting Arabic classes

MANGALURU: Mangaluru City Police cracked down on a group of Hindu vigilantes who barged in to St Thomas Aided Higher Primary School at Padu Bodanthila under Mangaluru rural police station limits on Saturday. While three persons were arrested on charges of trespassing and preventing a government official from discharging their duties on Sunday, the 13 more persons were arrested on Monday, taking the total number of arrests in this case to 16.

City police chief M Chandra Sekhar said the cops arrested Mukesh, Ravi, Chethan, Nithin, Kishore, Sunil, Nithin, Rajesh, Ravi, Raghavendra, Jayanth, Prakash, and Chandrahas to go with the arrest of Nithin, Dinesh and Santhosh a day earlier. "We initially had names of a couple of the accused and based on the investigation and information given by those arrested earlier, police have arrested the remaining accused and initiated action against them," he said.

The Saturday incident was sparked after the vigilantes numbering around 17, said to be members of Sri Rama Sene, barged into the school and created a ruckus on grounds that the school was teaching Arabic to students there. The accused allegedly threatened the school staff from imparting classes in Arabic and Urdu to students, said Suresh Bhat Bakrabailu, district president of Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike in a statement released to the media here.

The incident has drawn widespread condemnation from various quarters. Ivan D'Souza, chief whip of the ruling Congress in the State Legislative Council who visited the school on Monday to gather information about the issue, urged the city police top brass to deal with the miscreants in a tough manner. Dinesh Bondanthila, secretary, DYFI Vamanjoor area committee, while condemning the incident said the school was teaching Arabic to students on their interest and not otherwise.