A day after state home minister Basavaraj Bommai claimed that he had made a phone call to Historian Ramachandra Guha to apologise to him in connection with the police manhandling him during an anti-CAA protest in the city, the historian has said he received no such call.
On Wednesday, while defending the police action in case of the Mangaluru shootout incident, Bommai had alleged that the opposition's claims of police excesses were false. "Anti-CAA protests have been taking place across the state. We have not stopped anyone. There might have been minor discrepancies, like that of Historian Ramachandra Guha, being manhandled during a protest. For this, I have called and apologised to him," he said.
However, Guha has now said there was no such apology. Tweeting in reply to Bommai's statement, Guha said: "The Home Minister of Karnataka has claimed on the floor of the State Assembly that he apologised to me on phone for the manhandling by the Bengaluru police on 19th December 2019. This is false. I received no such call or apology. Even if such an apology had been offered, I would have rejected it. The imposition of Section 144 was illegal (as the Karnataka High Court has since held) and I was proud to be one of the thousands of peaceful protesters who defied the State's arbitrary action on that day."
The issue of anti-CAA protests and the police action that followed, including the Mangaluru Golibar, and the recent sedition cases have taken the centre stage in both the Assembly and Council sessions held over the last three days.
(Published 20 February 2020, 10:59 IST)
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