MANGALURU: City police commissioner PS Harsha has been transferred barely a week after a charge sheet was filed in the court over the Mangaluru violence case that took place on December 19, 2019. Two persons were killed and several injured in the police firing on anti-CAA protestors.
Harsha was under fire over alleged police excess. Opposition parties and several organisations had demanded his transfer over the deaths.
A report by the People's Tribunal on the incident led by retired Supreme Court judge V Gopala Gowda had said that the action of the police personnel seems to contravene significant limitations of their powers while pressing for the constitution of a judicial commission of inquiry to probe the incident.
Several actions and statements of Harsha with regard to the incident had come under the scanner and were construed to be biased against a particular community. In a few FIRs related to the incident, the unidentified accused were named as 'Muslims'.
Harsha had earlier clarified that the police had no other option but to fire at the protesters who had torched a police station in Bunder and broke into a weapons shop. The two incidents, however, were not found to be true when reporters visited the spot after the incident. He had stated that over 7,000 protestors armed with stones and lethal weapons attacked the police. But, according to CCTV footage from the spot, there was not even one-fourth of the number claimed by the top cop present on the spot.
Harsha also called the journalists from Kerala, who arrived in the city to cover the aftermath of the incident, as 'anti-social' elements. The statement has also been under the scanner. Video footage of an Inspector asking his colleagues why no one is killed despite several rounds of firing had also led to the intention of the cops behind the firing.a