A video has emerged on social media, purporting to show a right-wing group gathered outside a mosque in Karntaka's Ballari district. In the video, a man is seen throwing a slipper at a local mosque, presumably with the intention to provoke communal violence.
Twitter user Habeeb Ashrafi asked in response, "As seen in the video slipper was thrown into the mosque to erect violence in Siruguppa Ballari District . So what action is going to be taken?"
Alok Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order, Karnataka, responded to Ashrafi with a tweet of his own, wherein he stated that the offenders were already in police custody, and that legal action against them was forthcoming.
"We have secured the accused persons. Appropriate legal action is being taken against them," Kumar tweeted.
The Karnataka Police state crime record, last published in 2020, states that Dakshina Kannada district saw 67 incidents of rioting that year. Separately, the Mangaluru commissionerate recorded 23 clashes.
The state has seen over a dozen people killed over the past seven years or so. The state has seen a serious flare-up of communal tensions recently, including controversy over the wearing of the hijab in educational institutes and a campaign to boycott halal meat this year.
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