In Karnataka, Compensation for Victims of Communal Hate Crimes Is Beholden to Party Politics

Dakshina Kannada: After spending over 10 days in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Mangaluru, 30-year-old Kalandar Shafi says he shudders at the thought of returning to his village, Koltamajalu.

There, the people who Shafi grew up with and worked with are now baying for his blood. Shafi is a survivor of a communal hate crime that occurred on May 27 in Koltamajalu. Since the incident, he has moved with in his sister, 20 kilometres away, to another village Addur.

Shafi says his co-worker and childhood friend, Abdul Rehman, was hacked to death before his eyes by men he had known since childhood. “The incident keeps flashing before my eyes,” he says. “I still can’t believe that Deepak (Pujari, one of the assailants) could attack us. We had known him forever; he and I had worked together as masons for many years,” Shafi adds. Abdul Rehman was secretary of Koltamajalu Jumma Masjid and drove a pick-up truck that ferried raw material for construction work.  

On May 27, according to Shafi and the first information report lodged at the Bantwal police station based on his statement, Deepak Pujari had called on Rehman to carry out construction work at his house on the outskirts of the village. Rehman had asked Shafi to join, and the two travelled to the location with sand for construction. “We even found Deepak’s mother on the way and offered to drop her home,” Shafi says.

Abdul Rehman was killed in Koltamajalu village on May 27.

Upon reaching Pujari's place, the two saw that a group of men had gathered there. They would prove to be their assailants. They quickly picked a fight with Rehman and in no time, hacked him to death. Shafi suffered multiple sword injuries to his arm, chest, abdomen, and lower back.

“I knew they were going to kill me next. I ran more than three kilometres in that injured condition,” he says. Pujari, the prime accused in the case, comes from a marginalised labourer’s family and lives in a rented house. Pujari and the other accused men belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and according to Shafi, are affiliated with the militant right-wing group Bajrang Dal.

Doctors have said that it will be at least two years before Shafi, who has had to have rods fitted into his arms, can return to the labour work he did to support his family. He no longer feels confident about returning to his village.

In Addur village where Shafi lives now, he says, it “feels safer”, as the majority of the households there belong to Muslims. “In Koltamajalu, we Muslims are fewer in number, and my house is surrounded by those belonging to the Hindu community,” he explains.

Victims being forced to leave their place of habitation is not uncommon, a pattern seen following riots, communal violence, and even caste-based attacks.

Kalandar Shafi has suffered multiple stab injuries all over his body. Photo: Sukanya Shantha.

Since the incident, Shafi has had no job, no home to return to, and no support from the state government either. Although the police have arrested eight persons, including Pujari, there has been no further communication from the police or the Congress-led state government, he shares. “My family has been appealing to Congress leaders for compensation,” he says, “but there has been no response from the government so far”.

A government and party failure

Between April and May, three people were murdered, and one person – Shafi – was seriously injured in three separate incidents of hate crimes. Among those killed were Mohammed Ashraf, a mentally unstable Muslim man from the Wayanad region in Kerala, who worked as a ragpicker in Mangaluru city, Suhas Shetty, a Hindutva worker who has multiple cases of hate crimes against his name, including the 2022 murder of Mohammad Fazil, and Abdul Rehman who was killed in Koltamajalu village.

The Congress government has not announced compensation for any of these murders, despite these being clear cases of violence. Abdul Rehman’s brother, Mohammed Hanif, says that the state government has not sent any representative to meet the family. “The police have come a few times to record statements, that is all. No MLA, no collector has come to see how the family is surviving,” Hanif, who also works as a driver of a pick-up van, told The Wire.

The Congress’s failure to act promptly to the incident led to unrest among the Muslim community. Soon after the incident, close to 200 Congress workers from the Muslim community, including former mayor K. Ashraf, had submitted their resignation as a sign of collective protest. Ashraf, talking to The Wire, soon after the incident had said, “The Congress came to power because the Muslims of the region and across the state had unanimously voted for the party. It was a conscious decision that the community had taken to ensure that right wing forces don’t return to power in the state and cause more havoc. But see what is happening under the Congress regime too?” Ashraf had said.

A history of communal crimes

The Dakshina Kannada region has always been communally tense. Activist Shabeer Ahamed, who has been closely documenting cases of violence and hate crimes in the region reiterates what Ashraf shared. “The resentment,” he says, “is not just within the party but also in the community.”

Shabeer was a part of a fact-finding team that recently published a detailed report into Mohammed Ashraf’s killing. Ashraf, a 30-year-old man from Kerala, was lynched by a mob of over 30 men at the temple village of Kudupu that falls under the jurisdiction of the Wamanjur Mangalore Rural Police Station. Soon after he was killed on April 27, the media claimed that Ashraf had shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” slogan, thus almost attempting to justify the mob lynching. 

These unverified media reports were lapped up even by the Congress leaders, including state home minister G. Parameshwar and chief minister Siddaramiah. “If the 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan was shouted, it was wrong, whoever it is. Inquiry is still going on, a case has been registered. Let the report come, it will be clear as to what action should be taken against whom. If anyone speaks in favour of Pakistan, it is wrong, it is treason,” Siddaramiah had said, soon after the incident. 

The fact-finding exercise, carried out by the Karnataka unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the Association of Protection for Civil Rights (APCR) and the All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ), however, found that no such sloganeering ever happened. Congress leaders had repeated the media’s unverified claims without checking their veracity.

In reality, the accused men were all playing cricket at the ground next to the Bhatra Kallurti Temple, when they saw Ashraf drink water around the temple and attacked him unprovoked. The Mangaluru police, who the activists accuse of being highly communalised, had first filed an “Untimely Death Report” in the case and a concrete FIR came days later following pressure. After the incident, the commissioner of Mangaluru police Anupam Aggarwal was transferred out for his alleged complicity in the case.

Activists claim that investigation is only one part of the issue. “These families are all poor and were dependent on the income that these men brought home,” Shabeer says.

Politics of compensation

Three years ago, when the BJP government was in power, the region had witnessed similar mob killings. The BJP had arbitrarily paid compensation only to the family of Praveen Netharu, a BJP Yuva Morcha member, who was killed in 2022 by alleged members of the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI). The state BJP government then had ignored the demands for compensation of the rest and only after the Congress came to power in May 2023 were the families of those killed given Rs 25 lakh each as compensation. Among them, three were Muslim youth and one was a Hindu man associated with the Bajrang Dal.

Compensations in mob violence and hate crime cases are an outcome of the Supreme Court’s order in the Tehseen Poonawalla case where the apex court had directed that every state, along with taking a serious note of the issue of mob violence, should also disburse compensation to the families of the victims.

Activists allege that since Suhas Shetty, a Bajrang Dal member, was also killed in the hate crimes, the Congress government is hesitant to provide compensation. The BJP has already paid Rs 25 lakh to Shetty’s family on behalf of the party and the case has been handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The killings of the Muslim men are all being handled by the state police.  

“They (the Congress) don’t want to be seen giving compensation to a Hindutva man accused of mob violence himself,” said a senior activist. But amid the party politics, it is the victims’ families which are suffering, Shabeer says.

Several calls and messages were sent to state legislative assembly Speaker and Mangaluru MLA U.T. Khader for his comment on the allegations elicited no response. The story will be updated if Khader responds.

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