Bengaluru riots: Police at the receiving end of mob fury

Scores of policemen, including senior officers, suffered injuries while controlling the rampaging mob on Tuesday night.

Four DCPs, including M N Anucheth (Central), D Devaraj (Whitefield), Bheemashankar Guled (Northeast) and S D Sharanappa (East), were injured. In fact, despite the body armour, Commissioner Kamal Pant was hit by a pelted stone and had his helmet and eye-glasses damaged.

This apart, about 70 police personnel sustained injuries during the stone-throwing. The mob also hurled sharp weapons at them. While 40 of the injured police belonged to the DJ Halli police station, 10 were from the KG Halli station. The remaining 20 officials belonged to adjoining police stations. The miscreants also damaged streetlights and CCTV cameras in the affected areas to ensure that police fail to identify and track them later.

DCP Guled’s vehicle driver Velayudha was attacked with weapons by the mob and he sustained a fracture on his hand. According to a senior officer, the mob targeted the police officers when they rushed to the spot after the call given by the police commissioner Kamal Pant. The crowd attacked them as soon as they alighted from their vehicles without giving much time for them to react.

According to Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), police have taken up seven separate cases pertaining to Tuesday's incident and arrested 145 people so far. Further investigation is going on and more people could be arrested in the coming days.

According to Kamal Pant, a case has also been registered against Naveen for the offensive post that uploaded to Facebook and he has been arrested. Pant appealed to the public to maintain the peace.

Around 25 vehicles belonging to police have been set to fire including an SUV allotted to a police inspector, two Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) minibuses, a personal car of a police inspector, three seized cars parked in front of KG Halli police station, 27 bikes parked in the basement of the DJ Halli police station, two cars and three parked near the house of MLA Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy in Kaval Byrasandra, a car and two bikes parked in front of his sister’s house, while more than 10 vehicles of public were also set on fire.

The mob not only ransacked the MLA’s house but also vandalised the KG Halli and DJ Halli police stations.

Stones were thrown on the doors of both the police station, while the crowd barged into the DJ Halli police station and broken the furniture, computer and chairs.

They even set fire in the basement. The miscreants have also ransacked two ATMs.