Now Reading: Bengaluru police FIR for ‘Umar Khalid Zindabad’ placard
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Bengaluru police FIR for ‘Umar Khalid Zindabad’ placard
The Bengaluru City Police have registered a suo motu FIR against a woman for holding a placard reading "Umar Khalid Zindabad" and "Sharjeel Imam Zindabad" at a students' protest. Neha Bora, National…
The Bengaluru City Police have registered a suo motu FIR against a woman for holding a placard reading "Umar Khalid Zindabad" and "Sharjeel Imam Zindabad" at a students' protest. Neha Bora, National President of the All India Students' Association, criticised the Congress government in Karnataka, saying parties that oppose the BJP must lead by example.
This is part of a pattern of the police being risk-averse on dissent. Three suo motu FIRs were booked against pro-Palestine demonstrators, two later quashed by the Karnataka High Court. Indoor meetings discussing pro-Palestine issues were disrupted. Police rely on a 2021 order mandating all protests be held only at Freedom Park, which activists say ghettoises dissent.
The Congress government has been slow to reverse the 2021 order or repeal two communal laws it promised to roll back in its 2023 manifesto. The Karnataka Regulation of Use of Government Premises and Public Property Bill, 2026, was approved by the cabinet but not tabled in the recent session.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The 2021 protest order was a response to a High Court PIL over traffic disruptions after the anti-CAA protests that centred around Bilal Bagh. By confining protests to Freedom Park, the police effectively make dissent invisible to the public. The Congress government's reluctance to repeal the 2021 order or the 2020 cattle slaughter and 2022 anti-conversion laws stems from a calculation that doing so would hand the BJP a Hindutva rallying issue in the next election. The test will be whether the government tables the premises-use bill in the next session or lets it lapse.
The High Court of Karnataka has already quashed two of the three pro-Palestine FIRs, signalling judicial discomfort with the police's approach.
Source: thehindu.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
