On July 28, 2012, a group of Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists assaulted 13 young men and women who were celebrating a birthday, claiming that they were having a “rave party.” For weeks, people in Mangaluru and all over the country watched videos of the assault, discussed the morality of the victims, defended the attackers, and staged protests condemning the Hindutva vigilantes. Coming just three years after the Mangaluru pub attack by Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Ram Sene and innumerable instances of vigilante assaults on interfaith friends and romantic partners in the past two decades, the Mangaluru homestay attack case has ended like all the rest: with all the accused at large.

What sets the homestay assault case apart from other communal attacks carried out by Hindutva goons is that conviction of the accused was a real possibility because, unlike in the pub attack case, victims themselves came forward to complain. But 12 years later, on August 6, 2024, Judge SV Kantharaju rejected both the victims’ statements and the video evidence to conclude that there was “absolutely no material whatsoever” to connect the accused to the crime and that the footage was not “fully reliable.” 

The Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists who carried out the homestay assault were led by Subhash Padil, a Hindutva goon-for-hire who also played a key role in the pub attack three years earlier and got away with it when the court acquitted him and others in 2018. Eight others who carried out the homestay attack were also involved in the pub attack. Now that Subhash and the rest – who have been out on bail since 2013 – have been acquitted, people fear that such vigilantes will be emboldened to assault interfaith friends and romantic partners with impunity. 

A birthday bash, not ‘rave party’ at the homestay

Two friends, Vijay Kumar and Sarita (name changed), who shared a birthday on July 28, decided to celebrate it together that year by renting a private venue and inviting their friends. Eight men and five women met around lunchtime for the birthday party at Morning Mist Homestay in Padil, Mangaluru. They cut the cake, had lunch, and some of them had a few beers. A few hours later, their relaxed birthday gathering turned into a nightmare. 

Around the same time, Mangaluru-based Kannada television journalist Naveen Soorinje received a tip-off from a source claiming he had overheard right-wing activists planning an attack. Naveen and cameraperson Rajesh Poojary immediately went to the homestay, but all they found were a couple of young men and women lounging around outside the bungalow. All was quiet. Moments later, around 40 Hindutva activists turned up and launched an attack. 

For around 15 minutes, the Hindutva activists chased and assaulted the young men and women, tore off their clothes, molested the women, and even stole gold chains and money.

The police arrived after it was all over. Curiously enough, they let off all the attackers. 

The assault that evening may have ended like many such attacks – with the police letting off the assailants and sending the assaulted men and women home after calling their parents – had it not been for a journalist who followed a tip-off. 

Naveen immediately reported the story, and soon, the footage of the assault was flashing on TV screens across the country, and thousands of people watched the Hindutva thugs assaulting the young men and women. Under pressure, the police were forced to act, and the then BJP government headed by Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar found itself in a tight spot. Everyone from CT Ravi, a Hindutva hardliner, to former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and the then Home Minister R Ashoka had to condemn the attack and say the government would take strong action. 

Hindutva activists and others made wild claims about drugs being found at the homestay, even though the police stated that no drugs were found. However, the reportage of the assault and an essay by Naveen Soorinje detailing the events of the day, helped counter attempts by right-wing activists and even the State Women’s Commission to project it as a “rave party” where alcohol and drugs were flowing. Two of the victims of the assault also stated publicly that they had been assaulted and that there was no “rave party” as was being claimed. 

Read: Journalist recalls the Karnataka homestay attack horror after a trial court acquits accused

The Mangaluru City police, however, booked Naveen too, claiming that he knew of the attack but did not inform the police and accused him of indecent representation of women. Vijay Kumar, who was assaulted at the homestay, had stated publicly that he had not named Naveen in his complaint. 

Naveen was arrested three months after the incident and spent over four months in jail. During Naveen’s bail hearing in the Karnataka High Court, Vijay said, “I would consider it a sin to complain against, of all persons who were present on that day, Naveen Soorinje. I swear by the god that I believe in, that I did not allege anything illegal against him.” It was on the basis of Vijay’s statement that Naveen was granted bail on March 18, 2013. Five days later, Vijay came from Bengaluru to see Naveen walk out of jail.

Reacting to the verdict, Naveen, who has extensively reported on communalism in coastal Karnataka for almost two decades, said that it was a shame that the accused were not convicted. 

“People have been attacked in every mall and every beach in Mangaluru, pulled out of buses, and thrashed, all in the name of moral policing. No one was punished in a single case because there were no complainants,” he said. Even in major instances of Hindutva violence, such as the pub attack and the church attacks in Mangaluru, nobody was punished because there were no complainants or witnesses, he pointed out. “In this case, there was everything: a complainant, witnesses who testified, and video footage. If not all, we thought at least some of the accused would be held guilty. If the accused had been convicted, it might have acted as a deterrent,” Naveen told TNM.

The two main witnesses

Why did the case fall apart in court when the basic ingredients for at least a strong case were present? 

The prosecution built its case around the statements made by the complainant Vijay Kumar and Gurudutt Kamath, another victim, and argued that the accused could be convicted on the strength of their statements alone as both had clearly identified the attackers in court. They were also the only victims who were not declared hostile while testifying during the trial. 

Vijay Kumar, the complainant, testified in court that the attackers assaulted him and his friends, tried to carry one of the women, and disrobed some of them.

During his deposition, Vijay told the court that the incident had left him disturbed. “After this incident, my career was ruined because I was projected in a certain way in the media and I was defamed. I worked as an event manager, and for two years I didn’t get work. Our women friends were mentally broken and depressed because of what happened.” 

In open court, Vijay identified the accused as the people who had attacked them on July 28, 2012. “Some of the attackers who assaulted us during our birthday party and misbehaved with our women friends are not present in court today. I can identify those who are not present in court today.”

When Vijay was cross-examined by the defence, he said, “It is true that it was dark. I cannot describe the acts committed by each of the people there, but I have described the acts committed by some of them during my main examination. I described the physical and facial features of some of the accused, not all.” 

These statements were among the judge’s reasons for rejecting Vijay’s testimony. He said, “This witness has in his chief examination narrated the incident, but in the cross-examination... he has given contra admission and not spoke about the involvement of the accused persons specifically. Thereby, his evidence has not fully supported the case of the prosecution (sic).” 

This focus on the ‘contra admissions’ (inconsistencies in statements) and the inability of the victims to specify exactly which attacker assaulted whom and in which manner, which was brought out during cross-examination, is a running theme throughout the judgement. It would be pertinent to note here the trial started in 2019, seven years after the incident.  

Another reason for rejecting Vijay’s testimony was the failure of the police in carrying out a test identification parade, which is usually done when the accused are unknown. Victims pick out the accused from a line-up of suspects rounded up by the police. This procedure, however, has to be done in the presence of the Tahsildar.

Gurudutt Kamath, the second witness on whom the prosecution relied, described how the attackers tried to molest one woman, how another woman jumped from the first floor, and how they tore off the clothes of some of the women, and how Vijay was attacked and his shirt torn off. He told the court that the attackers directed Sharan (one of the accused) to take videos of the women, and how the attackers tried to prevent the women from hiding their faces from the camera. 

Identifying the accused in open court, Gurudutt said, “All the accused were participants in the incident. Some of the attackers are not present in court, but I can identify them if I see them.” One of the attackers Gurudutt identified was Ganesh, an accused in the 2009 Mangaluru pub attack case. Ganesh yanked off a woman’s jacket and then wore it himself. Gurudutt also testified that Subhash Padil was the ringleader. 

Gurudutt too spoke about the emotional cost of the incident. “I wish to tell the court that after this incident, life became very difficult for us. Our faces were shown by the media for three-four months, and this was very disturbing for us. It was humiliating for our women friends, who became very depressed. They stopped talking to us and did not leave their homes for a very long time.” He told the court that he had to move to Bengaluru, and that seven years after the incident, he’s been able to overcome the trauma. “I hope that such an incident never occurs again in my life and the accused never again cause me any trouble (sic).”

As with Vijay’s testimony, the judge focused on Gurudutt’s answers during cross-examination. “He (Gurudutt) admitted that 40 persons have come inside holding cameras with them. As all the persons have come together, the incident occurred in fraction of seconds. Therefore, it was not possible to observe who all participated in the incident. Likewise, he cannot say who is assaulting whom (sic).” No test identification parade was held even for Gurudutt. 

On Gurudutt’s testimony, the judge said, “Though this witness has given evidence supporting the case of the prosecution, during the cross-examination he has given contra admissions. Therefore, his evidence did not fully support the case of the prosecution (sic).”

Even though she was declared partly hostile, the testimony of a third victim is also important, as she could clearly identify in court the man who attacked her. Dikshita (name changed) testified that she was on the balcony of the homestay, and two men grabbed her, dragged her to a room, and threw her on the bed. When she questioned them, one of the men slapped her so hard that she briefly lost consciousness. When she came to, the same man slapped her again. Incidentally, Ganesh was the “man in blue,” whom the then Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen identified as a key attacker during the hearing of a PIL on the case in August 2012.

After the assault, the attackers left the place, and the police took them to the Women’s Police Station. “My left eye and ear were injured. I was terrified and did not think of getting treatment,” she told the court. Her parents took her home from the police station. 

Dikshita told the court that she later learnt that the name of the man who slapped her was Ganesh. She said that he was not present in court that day. “I can identify him if I see him.” A test identification parade was not done for her either. 

She too told the court about the distress the attack had caused. She said that for around a month, the assault was reported in the media and discussed on social media. “After the incident, people looked at us differently, and it was very distressing. We found it difficult to face people.”

As with Gurudutt and Vijay Kumar’s testimonies, the judge disregarded that Dikshita identified the man who attacked her. He dismissed her statement, saying she could not identify the attackers, and, strangely, because she did not tell her doctor how she was injured. “Overall evaluation of evidence of this witness shows that, though she has admitted the incident, she has failed to identify all the accused persons who participated in the incident, and moreover, she has taken treatment from … but she has not narrated (to the doctor) about the incident and also about the assailants…” There is no legal requirement for the injured person to reveal how they obtained their injuries, but the judge made similar observations about several of the victims.

During the trial, which started on September 19, 2019, the prosecution examined 47 witnesses, including 11 of the 13 victims who were assaulted that day. Of the 11 victims who deposed, four were declared hostile. Five victims who were declared partly hostile included three women whose testimonies were declared as ‘not sufficient’, ‘not helpful to the prosecution’, or ‘not trustworthy’ by the judge, as they could not identify the accused as the attackers and specify who assaulted them and how. 

The 14 advocates who represented the 39 accused argued that the accused should be given the benefit of doubt and acquitted of all charges because all the material witnesses had turned hostile, the victims had not identified the accused nor were they able to specify how the accused were involved in the crime, and a test identification parade was mandatory but it had not been done.

The prosecution, however, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Malkhansingh and Others vs State of Madhya Pradesh, said that the test identification parade was not mandatory when the evidence of the complainant is found reliable and when the complainant is able to identify the accused in court. 

While it was clear that Vijay, Gurudutt, and Dikshita had indeed identified the attackers, the judge extensively relied on the other victims’ statements, most of whom were hostile to the case. 

The judge said that the prosecution had failed to bring home the guilt of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt.

Bengaluru-based advocate Rahul Machaiah, told TNM, that the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the job of the courts is to ascertain the truth and not get entangled with inconsistencies. “There is no case in which witnesses don’t turn hostile. In rape cases, for instance, even when the complainants themselves have turned hostile, the courts have handed out convictions.”

Rahul cited a case from 1978, in the Inder Singh and Anr vs The State (Delhi Admn) case, in which Justice VR Krishna Iyer says, “The credibility of testimony, oral and circumstantial, depends considerably on a judicial evaluation of the totality, not isolated scrutiny. While it is necessary that proof beyond reasonable doubt should be adduced in all criminal cases, it is not necessary that it should be perfect… Proof beyond reasonable doubt is a guideline, not a fetish, and a guilty man cannot get away with it because truth suffers some infirmity when projected through human processes.”

Videos of the assault

A month after the incident, the police seized two memory cards from Rajesh Poojary, the cameraperson who had accompanied the journalist Naveen Soorinje. By this time, millions of people worldwide had watched the videos of the infamous homestay attack. Police too had used the videos to identify and arrest the 40 attackers. 

The judge rejected the video footage for three main reasons: the forensic witness’ qualifications were doubtful, the video footage was “not fully reliable” because certain tests were not done, and a particular document for electronic footage under the Indian Evidence Act was not submitted.

The forensic expert Deepak Rao, who holds a PhD in cybercrime investigation, found that the footage in the three storage devices was not tampered with and submitted a report to the police. In court, he stated these findings.  

During the cross-examination, however, it emerged that the police had not collected a certificate that attested his qualifications, nor had he signed the forensic report. 

The judge cites these two procedural lapses, and ignores that Rao had stated during his deposition that he had a diploma in digital forensic image analysis. 

Rahul says that the court has the power to order the police and prosecution to collect such documents and present them to the court during trial. He also pointed out that when it comes to expert opinion, it is not necessarily the qualification of the expert that is considered, but the skill. “For instance, post-mortems in government hospitals are not always done by forensic experts, but by regular doctors. One must show that the expert witness doesn’t have the skill (to make the required assessment), which has affected the trial,” Rahul said. 

According to him, the Supreme Court had said time and again that the courts must not fall prey to the lapses – unintentional or deliberate – in the investigation.

Defence lawyers also raised questions about certain tests that were not done on the footage, and listed them out. The judge considered the non-performance of these as among the reasons for rejecting the video footage.

“Merely listing out the tests that have not been done isn’t good enough. It will not dislodge the case of the prosecution that the videos are genuine. It must be shown that a fair trial was being denied to the accused or prejudice has been caused to the accused by the non-performance of the tests, due to which the accused must be given the benefit of doubt,” Rahul says. 

One of the most bizarre parts of the judgement is how the court treats the statement of Rajesh Poojary, the cameraperson who accompanied Soorinje. He was declared hostile during the deposition as he denied his previous statements made to the police. 

Still, Rajesh repeatedly stated, even during cross-examination by the defence, that he went to the spot of the attack along with Naveen, that he had himself handed over to the police the memory card in which the footage of the assault was saved, and even identified in open court that the video he was shown was indeed one he had recorded. But he said that the partygoers were assaulting each other. 

The court simply accepted this, even though victim after victim was shown the videos in open court during the trial and no video shows any of the 13 victims assaulting each other. The judge only acknowledged that Poojary had recorded the video, and said, “He has not given a statement before the police station specifically about which accused has given trouble to which victim in which way… Thereby, his testimony creates doubt in the mind of the Court.” 

What then are we to make of this case? Did the police botch up the investigation and do a shoddy job of gathering evidence? Or was it the court that failed to appreciate the evidence before it? Was the court right in its interpretation of the evidence before it? 

“The trial court adopted a passive approach by not making an effort to independently identify the accused based on the digital evidence. Also, the trial court’s appreciation of the prosecution’s evidence is rather pedantic and hair-splitting in nature, as minor omissions in testimonies and defects in investigation do not necessarily vitiate the sanctity of the evidence and cause prejudice to the accused,” says Rahul.

Bengaluru-based advocate Akhila Vidyasandra said that the department of prosecution had “failed women." 

“The judge says that the evidence and the complainant have not implicated the accused. What does that mean? The video, and Gurudutt and Vijay’s statements show clearly that these people have committed a crime and the judge has not considered any of them.”

Calling the judgement “completely unacceptable," Akhila said, “Despite the fact that the forensic report said that the video was not tampered, the judge says that the prosecution has failed to prove all the charges. This shows that the judge is completely biased and has erred.” 

Akhila is also a member of the Mahila Dourjanya Virodhi Vedike. The protests that followed that homestay attack provided the impetus for women’s rights activists from across the state to form the Vedike. Akhila said the Vedike would demand that the state government appeal the verdict. “Such a judgement does not help women. It will help increase such crimes against women. The department of prosecution has failed us.”

In the 12 years since the homestay attack, the tentacles of moral policing have spread across the state. Attacks on people in interfaith relationships – or those believed to be in such relationships – have been carried out with impunity by Hindutva vigilantes in coastal Karnataka for nearly two decades, when the woman is believed to be Hindu and the man a Muslim. Worryingly, this phenomenon of 'moral policing’, where vigilantes carry out such attacks when the man is from “another” community, has recently spread to other parts of Karnataka, although it is not quite of the same scale and virulence as in coastal Karnataka. Davanagere and Haveri each saw two such attacks, including the horrific gang rape of a Muslim woman in Hangal, Haveri district, while Chikkaballapura and Bagalkot saw one such incident each in the last two years. 

This reporting is made possible with support from Report for the World, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project.