41 Pro-Kannada Activists Held for Disrupting Hindi Diwas Event in Bengaluru

Karnataka police said that 41 members of a pro-Kannada group had been arrested for allegedly making a disturbance and breaking into a five-star hotel here to protest a Hindi Diwas celebration.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) has since called for a protest in each of the state's 31 districts starting on Saturday, calling for the release of its workers and the withdrawal of "false cases" against them.

According to PTI, members of the pro-Kannada group stormed into the hotel on Thursday after the Ministry of Home Affairs' Rajbhasha Samiti had hosted a "Hindi Promotion Meeting" there that was attended by six members of parliament.

The activists, brandishing anti-event banners, said that the gathering was an attempt to force Hindi on states that do not speak it.

According to a police statement, the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language had organised a meeting from September 23 to 25 at the hotel on Race Course road here.

On the final day of the meeting, the session commenced at 9.30 am.

"Between approximately 10.45 am and 11 am, about 30 to 40 members of an organisation illegally entered the venue in protest against the meeting agenda, obstructed the work of government officials present, and created a disturbance. This caused a temporary disruption to the meeting," it stated.

The police immediately arrived at the scene, took the protestors into custody, and brought the situation under control. Consequently, the meeting at the hotel experienced a brief interruption but was completed as planned due to the police's timely intervention.

"A case was registered against the protestors at High Grounds Police Station, and legal action was taken. A total of 41 protestors were arrested and produced before the 1st ACJM Court, which sent them to judicial custody," it added.

KRV state president T A Narayana Gowda told reporters here that he has called for a demonstration against "false cases" against KRV activists by the state government and police in all 31 districts of the state starting on Saturday.

He insisted that the KRV would not permit the imposition of Hindi in Karnataka and urged the central government to stop doing so.  Adding, "Kannada is supreme in Karnataka,"

The national government's Rajbhasha Samiti is accused of propagating Hindi and forcing it on other state languages.  According to Gowda, the Rajbhasha Samiti members, including a few MPs, were urging Karnataka central government officials to utilise Hindi in their departmental work during the conference at the hotel.

"On getting to know about Hindi imposition from Kannada-speaking officials, working in the central government, our karyakartas went to the venue where the meeting was being held, and shouted slogans against Hindi imposition and tore the Hindi banner. By then police arrived and arrested KRV activists," he said.

Gowda claimed that a plot was later devised to fix KRV activists by falsely accusing them of destroying properties and preventing government personnel from carrying out their jobs, among other things. He said that bogus cases were filed with the goal of imprisoning the activists.

He criticised Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his government's ministers for filing complaints against Kannada activists, claiming that 13 of the 41 activities are carried out by women, some of whom have young children.

With PTI inputs.