Although Karnataka is touted as a progressive state in India, 2023 saw incidents like the Belagavi stripping shocker which made the state hang its head in shame. The resurfacing of sex determination and female foeticide rackets revealed that we still have a long way to go to earn the ‘progressive state’ tag. Traditional crimes and skyrocketing cybercrimes and economic offences, expanding tentacles of terrorist organisations and a growing network of drug peddlers stressed the need to strengthen policing.
Karnataka witnessed a surge in cybercrimes although Bengaluru, known for its IT innovation, was expected to provide better infrastructure to tackle it. Unfortunately, 2023 saw even software engineers falling prey to cyber crooks, losing money to online job frauds, which tops the trends in cyber crimes, followed by business opportunity frauds, loan frauds and sextortion, among others.
Despite stricter vigil and crackdown by law enforcement agencies, drug menace continued unabated in the state, especially in Bengaluru, where drug dealers seem to have developed an impenetrable network of peddlers. Although police discouraged consumers by booking them under the NDPS Act, it failed to deter them from consuming easily available substances like ganja (marijuana), leaving police with the option of getting to the bottom of the case and dismantling active drug networks.
In the stripping incident, a 42-year-old woman belonging to a Scheduled Tribe, whose son eloped with a girl, ended up being punished by the girl’s family. They stripped and paraded her naked before tying her to a pole and beating her up. It happened in a village in Belagavi even as the state legislature was in session there, and shook up the state and country. The Karnataka High Court took suo motu cognisance of the case and pulled up the police and government. The incident cast doubts about us being a civilised society.
The October 7 Attibele cracker godown fire tragedy, which claimed 17 lives, caught the nation’s attention. Most of the victims were students who had come there to earn money to pay their college fees. The incident near the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border made authorities rethink fire safety measures and the dire need to implement stricter rules. The government contemplated banning firecrackers, even during Deepavali, but no concrete decision was taken.
Sex determination and female foeticide cases prompted the health department to up its ante against diagnostic centres. It led to the unearthing of a racket run from a nursing home in Hoskote, where staff and doctors had allegedly performed over 100 sex-selection abortions. The case is being probed by the CID.
In July, the Bengaluru CCB police arrested five terror suspects who were allegedly radicalised in Bengaluru Central Prison by a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative to carry out terror attacks in the city. Advanced ammunition, including rifles, live bullets and explosives were recovered. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) carried out multiple search operations in several districts of the state, especially in connection with suspects having links with ISIS, indicating the state was a preferred haven for extremist outfits to radicalise, recruit and carry out unlawful activities.
Several incidents of moral policing were also reported, especially in the coastal belt of Karnataka, despite the Congress government reiterating its zero-tolerance stand on moral policing. A few cases of honour killing were also reported.
INCIDENTS OF CONCERN