Mangaluru: Cops abort funeral procession; transport Deepak’s body secretly to Katipalla

Mangaluru, Jan 4: Even though Hindutva groups such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal had planned to take out a funeral procession of Deepak Rao, who was hacked to death yesterday, the police foiled their bid by secretly transporting the mortal remains in an ambulance to the house of the victim at Katipalla on the outskirts of the city on Thursday morning.

When the saffron activists came to known that the police shifted the dead body without their knowledge hundreds of them gathered in front of Deepak’s house and prevented the police from shifting the body from the ambulance to the house. A tense atmosphere has prevailed in the region. The activists are exerting pressure on the police to take the dead body back to the hospital and allow them to hold a procession.

Meanwhile, police have clamped prohibitory orders under Section 35 of Karnataka Police Act in the entire commissionerate limit till Thursday 10pm. Any procession will be considered violation of law during this period.

According to sources, the BJP and other right wing organisations had asked city police commissioner T R Suresh for permission to take out a funeral procession from AJ Hospital to Katipalla, a 15km stretch on the national highway. However, the top cop denied the permission considering that procession may lead to a law and order problem like in the past and result in a communal violence.

In the past many funeral processions taken out by the Hindutva groups had led to communal riots in Dakshina Kannada. In July 2017, the Hindutva groups had taken out a funeral procession of a slain RSS activists even though police had denied permission for the procession. This had led to communal tension in various parts of the district.

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