Mangaluru Commissioner of Police Kuldeep Kumar R Jain said on Friday that notices were served to three youths, asking them why they should not be extended from the district.
The commissioner, responding to a query on notices being served to three members from Hindu organisations involved in moral policing, stressed that the externment action is being taken against repeat offenders.
Jurisdictional police stations had submitted a report to extern three anti-social elements and as part of it, notices had been served. Three Bajrang Dal activists ---Balachandra Attavar, Ganesh Attavar and Jayaprashanth --- had received notices directing them to appear before DCP (Law and Order).
The trio issued a statement to a section of the media, declaring that they will fight the externment action legally. Commissioner responded by stressing that five cases were registered against Balachandra and Ganesh Attavar and seven cases against Jayaprashanth. As they were involved in many criminal cases, police had collected conditional bonds.
The youths, by involving in two more cases, had violated the conditional bond. Thus the conditional bonds had been withdrawn and action is being taken under different sections of IPC. With the intelligence report revealing that the three youths were likely to disturb peace and harmony, police officers submitted a report recommending their externment from Mangaluru Commissionerate limits and DK district limits. “The process has been initiated,” Jain added.
VHP Prantha Joint Secretary Sharan Pumpwell condemned the police’s efforts to extern and said, “The fight for Hindutva cannot be suppressed by externing Bajrang Dal activists. VHP condemns the move of police.”
Commissioner said already 62 persons involved in various repeated offences had been externed during the year. Police have been opening rowdy sheets against repeated offenders and booking them under Goonda Act.
Jain said that the police had collected conditional bonds from 987 persons engaged in criminal activities in commissionerate limits. As many as 12 persons were remanded to judicial custody for violating bond conditions. The police’s action under Goonda Act is not based on caste, creed, religion, party and organisations they belong to. The legal actions like booking under the Goonda Act, externment are taken to maintain law and order in the society, he stressed.