BENGALURU: Bengaluru, once touted as a peaceful, serene paradise for pensioners — is today a megapolis filled with people whose aggression is straining on the leashes — often snapping the restrainer and ending up in a full-scale assault.If the Mohammed Nalapad Haris-Vidvat Loganathan
assault case has shocked the people, it is because of their connections with the powerful. But go a little deeper into the social landscape and you would discover Bengaluru to be a violent city — and these are not restricted to pubs or bars, but other public spaces too.
According to the city police data, at least 10 assault incidents are reported daily in Bengaluru; but many of these cases end up without a First Information Report (FIR) being registered.However, there are innumerable incidents of assaults which do not even come anywhere close to the police radar.
Most of the brawls in public spaces are settled due to the intervention of passersby. Those where interventions fail, end up grabbing media attention; although grievous injuries feature even in those fights that are abruptly stopped.
City police says it is the 17-35 age group which is mostly involved in perpetrating assaults or triggering brawls. While alcohol is a major catalyst to worsen situations, assaults are spirited even by sheer hatred, arrogance and an overt consciousness about one’s power and financial status, or even trivial things like an unintentional push, nudge or even a stare.
THE ‘BURKING’ PROCESS
According to former assistant commissioner of police B B Ashok Kumar, only 40 per cent of assault cases are brought under legal scanner — which means police file FIRs to make them full-blown cases.
A whopping 60 per cent of the reported assault cases are subject to ‘burking’, a term used to describe the smothering of cases, mainly due to the image or status of those involved in the case. Also, many victims choose not to pursue the case due to subsequent rounds to the police station or courts. In many such instances, the police settle the cases without carrying out investigations or without registering an FIR, he said.
Many of the brawls or assaults taking place in posh pubs, restaurants or other public spaces do not come out as influential people are involved. Even if they do get reported, there is something called a ‘B’ Report that can put an end to the case “due to lack of evidence”, he added.
Take for instance, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Gowda being involved in an assault case at Hotel Empire in the wee hours of October 26, 2006. He and a couple of friends allegedly got into a brawl with some waiters of Hotel Empire on Church Street for insisting on being served food beyond the closing hours. A ‘B’ report was filed due to lack of evidence, said Ashok Kumar, who was the investigating officer in the case.
However, burking cases lead to adverse consequences. The first murder committed by the dreaded brigand Veerappan was subject to burking, which encouraged him to grow to the dreaded image in the subsequent years till he was killed on October 18, 2004.
CASES IN PUBS STIFLED
A majority of assault cases taking place in pubs do not get reported. For one, pub bouncers take care of the situation. The bouncers either settle the fight at the spot or throw out the fighting parties. A pub bouncer said brawls are common in pubs and bars. “Our intervention is to prevent fights but we do not report about it to the police or hand them over. When influential people come, their men ensure that a situation does not escalate,” he said. The practice of burking and a large number of assault cases not being reported has put assault statistics in police records in good light — they show a decline from 3,858 cases in 2015 to just 3,702 in 2017, although it shot up to 3,902 in 2016. However, if all assault cases were to be accounted for, the figure could easily be in multiples of the figures on official records.