Karnataka police arrested 13 people on Monday, September 26, for attacking a police officer on September 24. Circle Inspector Sreemanth Illal was grievously injured when he was attacked by a group of 40 marijuana growers. The Karnataka Directorate General of Police (DGP) Praveen Sood tweeted that Illath was a “brave heart” and they would “do everything possible for his recovery”. Illath was leading a team of police personnel to a location where marijuana was being grown illegally on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border in Bidar district as part of an investigation on September 23, when he was attacked. His ribs and lung were damaged in the assault. 

After Illath was initially admitted in a local community hospital in Basavakalyan, he was transferred to a super-specialty hospital for trauma and critical care in Kalaburagi. He was later airlifted to Bengaluru on Monday to be treated at Manipal Hospital. “He was transported in an ambulance to the airport and was airlifted from there,” said Kalaburagi district Superintendent of Police (SP) Isha Pant. When the special flight left for Bengaluru, Lok Sabha representative from Kalaburagi Umesh Jadhav, Gulbarga Rural MLA Basavaraj Mattimadu, and SP Isha Pant were present at the airport in Kalaburagi.

A police officer from Kalaburagi spoke to TNM about the attack and said that a few marijuana sellers were detained in Kalaburagi earlier that week and the team visited the Maharashtra location for further investigation. “Since it was near the border and we were traversing Karnataka farmland, we failed to alert the local police. Suddenly, however, people from a farm in Maharashtra arrived and attacked the police officers. A few of our officers managed to flee, although several of them were hurt,” the police official added.