The police in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district have arrested a 58-year-old man belonging to the Vokkaliga community under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for allegedly preventing a Dalit family from offering worship at a temple last week.
Jagadeesh, a resident of Gonitumkur in Turuvekere taluk, had gone to the Aarasamma temple in the village on February 19 with his newly married sister and her husband.
However, when they entered the temple around 7 pm, they were allegedly stopped by seven individuals who abused them using casteist slurs and prevented them from performing pooja.
Twenty-eight-year-old Jagadeesh, a non-gazetted government official, filed a complaint with the Turuvekere police the next day, naming Narayanappa, Prabha, Kanthanna, Amulya, Puttegowda, Padma and one unidentified person, accusing them of caste-based abuse.
He also said that he had recorded the abuse on his phone and was willing to share the evidence with the police.
According to the Turuvekere police, the accused belong to the Vokkaliga community.
The police have registered a case against the seven under Sections 3(2)(va) (knowingly committing an offence against a Scheduled Caste person), 3(1)(za)(C) (preventing an SC person from entering a place of public worship), 3(1)(r) (intentional insult of an SC person), and 3(1)(s) (caste-based abuse in public view) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 2015. They have also invoked Sections 190 (unlawful assembly), 351(2) (criminal intimidation) and 352 (intentional insult) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
While one person has been arrested, the rest are yet to be detained.