Two students of a college in rural Dakshina Kannada district have been suspended for two weeks under pressure from groups of students who asked the authorities to take action claiming that a boy and girl of two different communities were in a relationship.

According to a report in The Hindu, two pre-university students in a college in Sullia, around 90 km away from Mangaluru, have been placed under suspension after groups submitted a petition against the students asking the college authorities to take action against them for being a relationship as they belonged to two different communities.

The incident comes in the wake of another instance of alleged “moral policing” in which a 28-year-old Muslim man was assaulted by a group of men who claimed that he was in a relationship with a Hindu girl.

Read: Data shows communal incidents have risen alarmingly in coastal Karnataka in the last decade

College authorities have said that there is no evidence to show that the two students were in  relationship.

Students staged protests on Wednesday and had to be sent away by the police. Parents of the girl have taken her to their home in Kasargod district, Kerala.

Defending his actions, the principal told The Hindu: “We had to do this to bring the situation under control. The protesting students had disrupted functioning of the college for the last few days.”

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