It was August 1, 2012, and the then Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, Vikramajit Sen, was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on the homestay attack. “Who is that man in the blue shirt? Don’t spare him,” he said when he saw the terrifying footage that my cameraperson and I had shot when the Hindu Jagarana Vedike carried out the homestay attack on July 27, 2012. 

“This assault should make us all hang our heads in shame. Find out who the man in the blue shirt is. He had a crucial role to play in the assault. You should inform the court about the action you have taken against him. Investigate the assault thoroughly and submit a report within seven days,” Justice Sen had said, taking the state government to task. 

It is ironic that 12 years later, the district court failed to convict the very man whom the then Chief Justice had identified as an accused. All the men of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike who assaulted innocent young men and women during the homestay attack were recently acquitted by the Dakshina Kannada district court. 

I can still vividly recall the incident that occurred at 7.15 on the evening of July 28, 2012. 

Following a tip-off from a source, I reached the homestay a little before anybody from the Hindu Jagarana Vedike turned up. But at the time, I had no idea which organisation the attackers belonged to and why they were coming there. 

The homestay was about half a kilometre from the Bengaluru-Mangaluru national highway, in a place called Padil. A huge wall surrounded the bungalow and the compound had just one entry point. The bungalow itself stood around 60 metres away from the gate. Standing near the gate, I glanced around the compound. I didn’t see activities that might provoke an assault. A young woman was sitting on a chair outside the bungalow, two young men were standing in another corner looking at their mobile phones. There was nothing illegal going on. The type of situation that the attackers would have wanted, did not exist. That’s why it did not occur to me to inform the police. I feared that if I did, the police might harass the young women and men who were relaxed and minding their own business. 

As these thoughts ran through my mind, a group of over 30 people turned up and walked towards the gate. Instinctively curious, I asked in Tulu, “What’s the matter? What’s going on here?” Immediately, one of them replied, “Bearys have brought our Hindu girls here. They shouldn’t be spared.” Meanwhile, some of the others in the group had spotted the girl sitting outside and, gesturing, said, “There. There’s a girl there. And the boys are over there.” They began running towards the girl, preparing to attack. (Beary is the name of the local Muslim community.)

The moment she sensed danger, the girl ran inside the bungalow in a bid to try and protect herself. She tried to bolt the door, but around 30 attackers forced the door open. 

Suddenly, I was jolted back to my senses. Immediately, I called up the Mangaluru Rural Police Station Inspector 948080**0 from my official mobile number 9972*****4. It was around 7.15 pm. The Inspector did not answer my call. 

The assault had just begun. The girls were terrified of what might happen to them and were running, trying to escape, in terror. I kept calling the police, but my calls went unanswered. Seeing no other way out, I called up Rajesh Rao, who was a reporter with TV9 Kannada and my friend, and told him to call the police. Even when Rajesh called the police from his phone, there was no answer. 

Half of the attackers were intoxicated. They weren’t in the mood to listen to anything I had to say. The world has seen much barbarism, but I had never seen such violence in my life. My cameraperson followed the attackers as they chased and assaulted the young men and women. All I could do was watch helplessly and scream “Please, don’t hit the women!” My pleas were recorded on camera, but they did nothing to dissuade the attackers. 

The young men were pleading and begging. “Please, let us go. We’re only here for a birthday party.” Still, the heartless attackers remained unmoved. Had this been the extent of it, perhaps I would have forgotten the assault. But it was after this that the truly terrifying violence occurred. 

Seeing their men friends being beaten mercilessly, the women ran helter-skelter in shock. The attackers chased the women throughout the bungalow. Believe it or not, one of the women jumped from the first floor. More than 20 men caught her and ripped off her clothes. They slapped her and slammed her against the wall. They forced another girl into a bedroom and slapped her. (It was when he saw this part of the footage that the Chief Justice took the state government to task and said that the man in the blue shirt should not be spared.) 

One of the Hindu Jagrana Vedike men grabbed at a woman’s neck and stole her gold necklace. Another goon stole cash from another woman’s bag. They carried out thievery in the name of Hindutva and Indian culture. 

Meanwhile, the attackers tore at the clothes of a woman in a pink dress and almost stripped her — they maliciously stripped fully clothed women to make it look like they were ‘against Indian culture’. After almost completely stripping the woman in the pink dress naked, they began assaulting her on her genitals. I felt utterly helpless. I had never seen anything like this in my life. None of these terrifying scenes were recorded. What the camera recorded was but a fraction of the true horror that had occurred. 

After this, the attackers rounded up all the young women and men and confined them to one room. 

It felt like everything had happened lightning fast. In reality, it may have lasted slightly more than 15 minutes. 

The police only arrived after the attackers had more or less finished with their assault. For almost half an hour, the police were engrossed in a discussion with the attackers. I was surprised to see that the police, instead of arresting them, were chatting with the attackers. As this was going on, one of the young men tried to escape. The police immediately caught him and the attackers beat him again in the presence of the police. It was evident that the police saw the young men and women as wrongdoers and not the attackers. 

After we returned to the office, we gave the footage to the media, and the incident became national news. Leaders of Hindu organisations tried to portray it as a “rave party”. The police too, prepared to file an FIR accusing the young men and women of organising a “rave party”. 

That night, I wondered whether I had done my duty as a journalist, and wrote an essay detailing the events that had occurred. Translated into English and other languages, that essay was widely read. After that, it became clear to the public that what had occurred was not a “rave party”, and that the Hindu Jagrana Vedike had carried out an inhumane assault. It became evident that the ones who were at fault were not the young women and men but the attackers of the Hindu Jagrana Vedike, whom the police had let off. 

The BJP government was in power then. The assault had made national news and it became imperative for the government to arrest the Hindutva activists. Angered by my role in making it imperative for a BJP government to arrest Hindu activists, the then Police Commissioner called up Rajesh Rao, my friend who worked at TV9. “Why did Naveen have to report this? Doesn’t he have sisters? Shouldn’t they be beaten? Would he show it on TV? I know how to take care of him. He said Mangaluru has Taliban culture. He compared this to an organisation of Afghanistan and reported it live. I’m not going to spare him this time. I don’t care how much influence he has, I’m going to fix him in this case.”

The police had to arrest Hindutva activists when a BJP government was in power, even though they weren’t happy about it. They prepared a list of accused based on the footage we had recorded. The very police who had let off the accused that night now had to launch a hunt for them. Some were picked up from their homes, others from railway stations. But only eight people were arrested that night. The rest were arrested in the coming days.

During the trial, the police furnished evidence in a thorough manner. The seized evidence, identification of the accused, and the horrifying actions of the accused were presented to the court. Of the victims, three gave detailed statements. On perusing the court documents, it was clear that if not all 43 accused, several of them at least would definitely be held guilty and punished. But on August 6, 2024, all of the accused were acquitted due to the inability of the prosecution to prove the identities of the accused before the court. 

“Catch that man in the blue shirt. It looks like he’s the one who orchestrated this.” This statement of the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice is still echoing like a cry in the wilderness. 

Naveen Soorinje is a senior Kannada journalist. This piece was first published in the Kannada newspaper Vartha Bharati. It has been translated into English by Anisha Sheth.