Baton-wielding Bengaluru police patrolled the deserted and barricaded streets in the southern Indian tech hub on Thursday. This came after three people were killed in the clashes on Tuesday night prompted by an anti-Muslim social media post.
In Bengaluru, which is often dubbed as India’s Silicon Valley emergency law prohibiting large gatherings has been imposed in the city, the police officials said. On late Tuesday, the violence began with mobs pelting stones, setting police station on fire, and burning vehicles, and lasted until the early hours on Wednesday. Local media reported that dozens of people were wounded.
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The eyewitnesses described the situation as “scary.” Meanwhile, the police said that the man who posted a derogatory post, which has since been deleted, had been arrested. A spokesperson from the social media platform Facebook said that it was investigating the incident, adding its rules prohibiting violence and hate posts.
On Wednesday, the nationalist government led by BJP has started an investigation into the worst violence in the history of the city in more than two decades.
Kamal Pant, the Bengaluru Police Commissioner said his officers had initially tried to hold more than one thousand protesters using tear gas and batons, but then opened fire. Pant further added that officers had no other option but to resort to firing, which resulted in three deaths.
Rizwan Arshad, a Congress member of legislature form Bengaluru, said that all the dead were Muslim men. Arshad reached the police station on the night of violence to appeal for calm.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson of a government hospital in the city said they had treated at least 27 police officers and twelve protesters, including three who had suffered serious gunshot wounds.
On Tuesday night, the local media played footage that showed a group of people gathered outside a police station, burning police vehicles and clashing with officers. The home minister of the state of Karnataka said that with the help of CCTV footage, they would find out the culprits and vowed to take stringent action.
