Man held in Bengaluru after speaking ill of Kannada in drunken outburst

Mithun Sarkar, a resident of Begur Road, allegedly made derogatory remarks about Kannada-speaking people when a delivery boy arrived to hand him a package.

Bengaluru: Police in southern Bengaluru have arrested a man for disrespecting the Kannada language and speaking ill of Karnataka.

Mithun Sarkar, a resident of Begur Road, allegedly made derogatory remarks about Karnataka and Kannada-speaking people when a delivery boy arrived to hand him a package on Thursday morning and sought to speak in the local language.

Sarkar insisted on speaking in Hindi, saying 70% of the people speak that language.

Ranjith Mathew, 29, the delivery boy, filed a complaint in this regard at the jurisdictional Bommanahalli police station.

Following the FIR, activists of the pro-Kannada outfit Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) petitioned the police to take action against the suspect.

Mithun Sarkar.

The Bommanahalli police tracked down Sarkar on Friday morning and arrested him for intentional insult with intent to provoke the breach of peace, said an officer investigating the case.

"He says it was a drunken outburst," the officer said.

The offence is bailable, meaning the suspect can seek bail from the police without having to go to the court.

Ranjith, the delivery boy, appeared annoyed at the "unwanted publicity" following the incident.

"I've received 70-80 phone calls since morning. I'm just fed up," he told DH.