Reportedly the 28-year-old man was dragged out of his car disrobed, paraded naked, tied to an electric pole and thrashed in full public view for talking to the woman.
The group also beat the woman when she tried to save her colleague from public humiliation, although she managed to escape.
Reports mentioned that the man and the woman are colleagues working at a departmental store. The group attacked him when he was on his way to an ATM to withdraw money for the woman, who had requested for financial assistance.
According to NDTV:
“The attackers thrashed the man, stripped him and paraded him through the crowded market area before tying him to an electricity pole. The images were circulated on WhatsApp. The beating continued for nearly an hour. The police arrived when the visuals were flashed on local cable channels.”
Reportedly, the Mangalore police arrested members of the group, most of them affiliated to the Bajrang Dal—a rightwing Hindu outfit affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), the ideological counsellor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Hindu quoted City Police Commissioner S. Murugan, saying:
“The police reacted swiftly on learning about the incident. While assaults cannot always be prevented just by the police, what is alarming is the public reaction to the incident. Though hundreds were watching the assault, none dared to question the assailants.”
The motivation to attack the youth reportedly springs from an erroneous concept of Love Jihad propagated by right wing groups. The assumption is that Muslim youths use love jihad as a resort to religious conversion by luring “innocent” Hindu girls into marriage.
The incident bring to focus the 2009 Mangalore pub attack incident. Vigilante right-wing groups from the Sri Ram Sene party stormed a pub, dragged women by their hair and slapped them, accusing them of wearing jeans, t-shirts and denigrating Hindu culture.
Reportedly such incidents of moral policing involving right-wing activists are common in Mangalore.
