CHIKKAMAGALURU: BJP MLC CT Ravi alleged on Wednesday that Congress government is “ruffian”, and used the police to manhandle and humiliate him on December 19 in Belagavi. He charged that the police curtailed his fundamental rights and tortured him mentally and physically, flouting all human rights.
He was recounting the incident at the Legislative Council during the winter session, where he was arrested by the Belagavi police for allegedly making offensive comments about Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar.
He said party leaders will meet on December 26 and 27 to decide on continuing political and legal fight against those who acted as puppets of the government and misused their powers, violating the law and Constitution.
“Stringent action should be taken against the police officers who behaved inhumanly with me and they should be suspended. A tragic incident took place at Suvarna Vidhana Soudha on December 19 and I filed a complaint against the attackers, but no FIR has been registered till today. The police, without the movement order, arrested me like a criminal and took me in their van for over 400 km through four districts. Six police personnel made me walk near a sugarcane field and at that moment, I felt that I would be bumped off in an encounter,” he alleged.
On the Khanapur station circle police inspector being suspended, he said action should be taken against the police commissioner and superintendent of police.
On BJP leaders gathering at the police station, he said it was not a BJP meeting at the police station as claimed, but party leaders had come to meet him in the presence of the police commissioner.
“Congress leaders say they have video clips of the incident at the Council. The people who videographed it are not strangers. Personal assistants of Minister Hebbalkar and MLC Channaraju came to attack me. I wonder why the chief minister did not take any action against them,” he said.
On the challenge thrown at him by the minister to come to Dharmasthala and swear in the name of God whether he had insulted her, Ravi said that on the night he was being taken around by the police, he had sworn that he would fulfill a vow before Goddess Savadatti Yellamma. “I will not hesitate to go to Dharmasthala,” he added.
To a question whether the incident has taken a caste colour, he replied that he believed in Hindutva ideology and condemned the attack on BJP MLA Munirathna.