Violence during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act left two dead in Mangaluru on Thursday, and two persons are now in a critical condition.
Police sources have told TNM that while there is a total of 11 people injured in the aftermath of violence, and a source at the Highland Hospital in Mangaluru has confirmed to TNM that they presently have two persons admitted in the ICU. One has bullet injuries in his abdomen area.
Mangaluru Commissioner PS Harsha told media persons that while there were prohibitory orders (section 144) in the city, there were some people who turned violent, causing threat and damage to people and public property in many places. “The situation turned very grim around 4 pm yesterday. In the North Mangaluru police station limits, 5000-6000 people had collected and then turned violent. They surrounded the police station and started attacking civilians,” he alleged.
The Commissioner added that they used “legitimate force” to bring the situation under control.
While the police have maintained that they just fired in the air, some visuals that have emerged from Thursday show police firing in the crowd. “When things got out of control, two shots were fired in the air. Around eight to ten people attacked the police then and beat them up with stones," Harsha had said on Thursday.
The two people who died have been identified as Jaleel Kudroli (49) and Nausheen Bengre (23). “Both of them had bullet injuries. One had the bullet injury on his head, near his eye. A bullet had made a clean break via the stomach of the other patient. Both were declared dead and the police was informed as it was a medico-legal case,” the source from Highland Hospital had told TNM.
Later, on Thursday night, CCTV videos also emerged from Highland showing the police personnel barging into the hospital and throwing tear gas shells. Another video showed some protesters – who had gathered near the hospital hearing news of the two deaths – pelting stones at the police, and then running inside the hospital. The police, who ran after them inside, also took the caregivers, and relatives of other patients in the hospital to be protesters and threw tear gas shells at them.