The arrest of eight people in Mangaluru in connection with the May 1 murder of a Bajrang Dal worker – with a history of crimes including murder – has once again exposed the long-running cycle of communal murders perpetrated by gangs that enjoy political patronage in the communally polarised coastal Karnataka region.
Suhas Shetty, 32, a gangster associated with the right-wing Bajrang Dal, and accused in as many as five gang crimes, was hacked to death on a public street in Mangaluru on the evening of May 1 by a gang that arrived in two vehicles – a Bolero that rammed into Shetty’s Toyota Innova to bring it to a halt, and a Maruti Swift carrying six armed men.
The murder was captured on mobile phones by witnesses near the scene of the crime.
Suhas Shetty was the prime accused in the July 28, 2022, murder of Mohammed Fazil, 23, who had links with communal groups but no prior criminal history. Shetty had been released on bail a few months earlier.
In 2022, Mohammed Fazil was murdered at a clothing store in Surathkal on the outskirts of Mangaluru city on the evening of July 28 by four men who arrived in a car and chased him on the street before cornering him in the store, where he ran to escape the attackers.
The attackers specifically targeted Mohammed Fazil after they kept a watch over his house and identified him, and then targeted him, police said. It occurred a few days after a gang associated with the then-active radical Islamist group Popular Front of India (PFI) murdered BJP youth leader Praveen Nettaru, 32, in Bellare village of the region.
The investigations in the May 1 murder of Suhas Shetty have revealed that the murder of the Hindutva activist was plotted by Abdul Safwan, 29, who had been the target of an attack by Shetty’s gang in 2023, and Adil Maharoof, elder brother of Mohammed Fazil.
“There were two earlier attempts for the murder (of Shetty) but they were not successful. On May 1 the Safwan gang was able to find out the exact movement plans (of Shetty). The gang used two hired vehicles – one to chase and the other to ram the car of the victim. We have arrested eight persons directly involved in the murder,” Anupam Agrawal, Commissioner of Police, Mangaluru, said last week.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
