Mangalore, Apr 29: Demanding the withdrawal of the case booked on an ANF constable for gunning down a cattle trader and withdrawal of compensation announced for victim's family, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Hindu Jagrana Vedike jointly held a protest in front of the deputy commissioner's office here on Tuesday.
The protest comes following the arrest of ANF constable Naveen Naik, who had cold-bloodedly murdered cattle traded Kabeer from Krishnapur in Sringeri earlier this month. Government has announced Rs 10 lakh compensation for family of the victim recently.
Lashing out at the state government for declaring a compensation for Kabeer's family without a judicial inquiry or a CID probe into the matter, VHP district president Jagadish Shenava said that declaring compensation for his death even before an investigation was conducted, is like accepting their “mistake”.
The local Congress leaders are portraying the death of Kabeer as a great sacrifice he made for the country. Our government has made a headlong decision to declare compensation for the killing of a wrongdoer, but the same government contemplates a hundred times before offering compensation for the accidental deaths of civilians, he said.
He also criticized the government for having a soft corner of the group of 25 accused who vandalized the toll gate plaza at Brahmarakootlu on the outskirts of Mangalore, assaulted its staff and stole case from the cash register last week. But the members of Hindutva groups in the district are relentlessly booked under charges of attempt to murder, he said.
He strongly warned that the organisations would launch a massive struggle in the entire state if the government failed to withdraw the compensation for Kabeer and charges booked on the concerned ANF personnel. “We will not allow the government to sleep,” he warned.
Retired IAF personnel Narayana Kamath urged the government to conduct an unbiased re-investigation in the encounter case of Kabeer, without bowing to political pressure.
If the cattle that were being transported by Kabeer and company were not stolen, what was the need to transport the cattle in the dead of the night? It must have been illegal trafficking of stolen cattle, which is why the ANF personnel opened fire on the youth, he countered.
Law enforcement officers such as police or home guards will never attack or open fire while in plain clothes, unless there is a genuine reason. The encounter of Kabeer was not a pre-planned murder as the government is trying hard to prove. Giving the tax-payers' money as compensation in a hasty manner without attempting to verify his guilt does not befit the government, he said.
He added that the projection of illegal cattle traders as innocents' by politicians was merely appeasement for their vote-banks. Bajrangdal leader Sharan Pumpwell, Hindu Jagarana Vedike leader Satyajith Suratkal, Raviraj Kadaba and others were present.
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