Karnataka Police refused to register an FIR against a Hindutva group when a Muslim family approached them following their chicken shop had been vandalised by the group on a temple opening day in Belagavi.
The Hindutva assailants vandalised the chicken shop belonging to Hasan Sab and his wife Afsana Hasan Sab Khureshi in Yamanapur, and asked the couple to move away from the town in a threatening manner, reported Indian Express.
The right-wing group had demanded the closure of chicken shops in the area owing to a temple opening. Notably, there was no order from the administration on this.
The incident took place on 8 October and only came to light after a video began to be shared on social media.
“We were allowed to open till 11 am and we did close the shop by then. By afternoon, we sent two of our workers to clean the shop and that is when some of them attacked the workers, assaulted them and vandalised the shop. When my husband and I went there after getting to know about this, they threatened us that they would not allow us to live in the town and tried to extort money from us,” Afsana told the newspaper.
She went on to say: “When we tried to open the shop again, these goons continued to trouble us and tried to extort money saying that they would expel us from the village.”
When Hasan and Afsana approached cops, the latter held a meeting to affect a “compromise” in spite of the fact that the couple had asked for action against the Hindutva group.
“The police told us that they had ‘settled the matter and would not intervene in our business and told us that there was no need to file a complaint,” Afsana said.
When the video went viral on Monday, the police are now investigating the leak of the video and not the vandalisation, the couples alleged.
