Moral policing: Two held in Dakshina Kannada district of coastal Karnataka

‘Moral policing’ resurfaced in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka after a gap of four months with the arrest of two persons on the charge of abusing a group of students from different religions for being together and allegedly assaulting a student on November 6.

The Uppinangady police gave the names of the arrested persons as Mustafa and Mustafa Periyadka.

According to police, the alleged abuse and attack took place at Periyadka when a group of 10 under-graduate students were on their way to the house of their ailing classmate. They left the college on November 6 morning in a bus. They got down at a bus stop and started to walk towards their classmate’s house in Periyadka when Mustafa and Mustafa Periyadka came in a motorcycle and blocked the way of the group.

After ascertaining the names of the students, native places and college, they allegedly abused the girls in the group for hobnobbing with boys from another religion before assaulting one of the boys in the group.

On a complaint by the victim, the Uppinangady police registered a case under Sections 126(2), 352, 351(2), 115(2), and 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against the two accused persons.

Earlier in July, Puttur police had arrested two persons in connection with a ‘moral policing’ incident at Beeramale Betta in Puttur. A boy and a girl were talking to each other at Beeramale Betta when the duo confronted them. The duo allegedly insulted the boy and the girl in public and posted a video of the incident on social media.

The accused had assumed that the boy and the girl were from different religions. But police learnt that they are from the same religion.