Senior advocate releases homestay attack fact-finding committee report

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Nov 19, 2012  : Hemalatha Mahishi, a senior advocate in Bangalore, released on Sunday a fact-finding report on the attack on young people partying at Morning Mist Homestay at Padil in Mangalore, produced by the Forum against Atrocities on Women (FAAW) and People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

 

 

 

 

The report release ceremony was organized jointly by the Alternative Law Forum of Bangalore, PUCL, and FAAW. It is a detailed report of fundamentalist groups that engineered the attack and the individuals affected by it.

Addressing the gathering, Hemalatha Mahishi said that it is sad how Mangalore has transformed from a peaceful cosmopolitan city into a city fraught with incidents of moral policing and communal violence.

Flaying fundamentalist groups, she demanded to know what right they had to attack young people and take the law in their own hands. They could engineer such an attack only because they had political support, she added.

She urged the victims to remain strong and fight for justice till the end.

She also said that the person appointed as the chairperson of the Women’s Rights Commission/Human Rights Commission must not be affiliated to any political party.

Speaking on the issue, Varadesh Hiregange, director of Manipal Institution of Communication, said that as many as 112 cases of moral policing have been reported in the past 3 years, but no victim came forward to lodge a complaint. Even the police are insensitive toward the victims in such cases, he added.

Stating that the arrest of Kasturi TV channel reporter Naveen Soorinje in connection with this case is absurd, he said that the perpetrators of the crime as well as reporters were booked under the same section. He expressed hopes that the case against him is withdrawn at the earliest possible.

Dr. Sabiha Bhoomigowda, a member of the fact-finding committee, said in her introductory remarks that the objective of forming a fact-finding committee for this case was to find out the truth by interrogating the witnesses and the victims and create a report.

Among those present were members of the fact-finding committee and human rights activist Vidya Dinker.