A first information report (FIR) was registered on Friday, July 22 against pro-Hindutva activists who opposed an interfaith friendship in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district. On July 12, a Muslim woman named Shamsheena (22) invited her Hindu friend Kavya (21) over for a biryani feast. Midway to Shamsheena's house in Uppinangady, Kavya's brother dropped her off; the two friends then took a bus to Athoor town to buy chicken. After boarding an auto rickshaw, they observed a vehicle and a few men riding two-wheelers following them.
The complaint was filed by Shamsheena. The FIR named Sudharshan Golgady, Prashant Kolya, Tammu Kalkady, Prashad Kolya and others who followed Shamsheena and Kavya in their vehicles.
According to the FIR, the accused followed Shamsheena and her friend in vehicles.
It states that they gathered illegally in front of Shamsheena's house where they abused her and harassed them with death threats.
The Wire reported that more than 20-30 people associated with the Bajrang Dal had gathered a few meters away from Shamsheena's house. This was followed by the local police arriving at Shamsheena's house, asking for her brother Ziyad. The local police informed that they had arrived on the basis of information they received stating that Shamsheena's brother had brought a "Hindu girl" home. Ziyad works in Bengaluru and hadn't visited home for months.
Despite Shamsheena explaining that Ziyad was in Bengaluru and wasn't the driver of the auto rickshaw they boarded, the police continued to question them.
After a lengthy period of questioning, Shamsheena called her brother who confirmed to the police that he was out of town.
Ziyad told The Wire that he had recently shared articles on Facebook and WhatsApp that questioned BJP's anti-people policies. "Because of this a Hindutva group in my town is targeting me and even tried to file a complaint against me. When that did not work, they tried to implicate me using such false allegations,” he said.
This comes amid the rising communal tension in Dakshina Kannada due to instances like moral policing, incidents related to allegations of religious conversion, cow vigilantism, hate speech, ban on hijab, desecration of places of worship.
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