A ministry of home affairs (MHA) notification that declared the PFI an unlawful association under mentioned four Hindutva activists murder cases against the PFI in Karnataka as one of the reasons behind the decision.
The notification cites murder cases of R Rudresh, Praveen Poojary, Sharath Madiwala and Praveen Nettaru, apart from six other murder cases in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
However, in one of the murder cases listed by the MHA, all accused were acquitted by a court in Karnataka.
The murder mentioned in the MHA notification took place in 2016 in Kodagu district. Victim Praveen Poojary, a worker of Hindu Jagarana Vedike (HJV), had taken part in a procession in Kushalnagar on August 14 night.
During the procession, Hindutva activists had allegedly pelted stones at a prayer hall and houses belonging to Muslims. While Poojary was returning home after the procession, he was murdered at Bettageri road in Guddehosur. In the investigation that followed police had arrested Tufail, Nayaz, Afrin, Mohammed Mustafa, Iliyas, Irfan Ahmmed, Mujeeb Rehman, Sharief and Haris. All of whom were workers of the PFI.
In December 2021, the principal district and session court acquitted nine accused in the case.
“The prosecution had failed to prove the accused guilty of the murder. Hence, all have been acquitted. All nine were arrested on false charges. The court’s decision is satisfying,” said the advocate of an accused after the ruling.
Other cases are still under trial.
RSS worker Rudresh was hacked to death on December 12, 2016, at Kamaraj Road by two bike-borne men in full public view. In an official statement after the submission of the charge sheet, the NIA said the murder was pre-planned and that there were meetings before executing the plan.
“NIA investigation had established that the accused and others had conspiracy meetings before the terror act near Aksa Masjid and near Chota Charminar in Bengaluru in September 2016,” the NIA said.
The murder was an act of terror meant to strike fear among a section of people and it managed to do so, it claimed. Five men — Irfan Pasha, 32, Waseem Ahmed, 32, Mohammad Sadiq, 35, Mohammed Mujeeb Ulla, 46 and Asim Sheriff, 40, were arrested by Bengaluru police before the case was handed over to the NIA.
In March this year, a full bench of the Karnataka high court ruled that the appeal under Section 21 of the NIA Act is not maintainable against the order passed by the special court under Section 20 of the Act, rejecting the interlocutory application filed by an accused seeking a transfer of the case for offences under the UAPA, from a special court to regular court.
The third case, murder of Sharath Madiwala was reported in July 2017. On the night of July 7, RSS worker Madiwala, 28, who was downing the shutter of his ‘Uday Laundry’ on BC Road in Mangaluru, was murdered by miscreants. This is suspected to be in retaliation for the murder of Ashraf Kalayi, a member of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), who was killed on June 21 in Bantwal.
A total of 15 people were arrested in the case. All of them PFI workers. The trial in the case is underway and the accused are out on bail.
In the latest case, Praveen Nettaru, 32, was hacked to death by unidentified motorbike-borne assailants on July 26 night at Bellare in Dakshina Kannada district. Alok Kumar, additional director general of police (law and order), said the three suspects were arrested while they were on the move to evade police.
The suspects in custody were identified as Shiyabuddin alias Shiyab, 32, Riyaz Angatadakar, 27, and Basheer, 29. They were identified as PFI workers.
A police investigation has revealed that the murder of Nettaru, a BJP youth wing leader, in Dakshina Kannada was a retaliation to the killing of a Muslim man, 19-year-old Masood, in the district, officials aware of the probe said.
The NIA has taken over the case and a chargesheet is yet to be filed.
