BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has directed the State Government to accord police protection to Kannada Sahithya Parishath (KSP) president Dr Mahesh Joshi and also a personal gunman as and when sought for in view of threat perception.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order recently after going through the threat analysis report placed before the court in response to directions issued on the petition filed by Joshi.
“The report has several instances of threat perception projecting in real-time, but only at particular places in Karnataka.
In light of the threat perception being at several places in Karnataka, I deem it appropriate to direct the state to accord police protection to the petitioner, in terms of the order passed earlier and also provide the services of a personal security/gunman, when the petitioner is wanting to travel in the state, particularly, where the threat to the petitioner is in real-time.
Whenever the petitioner travels, the jurisdictional police, therein shall accord such protection”, said the judge while disposing of the petition.
Joshi, after the recent 87th All India Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in Mandya, had said that he has been receiving serious threats to his life from the vested interests who tried to create a disturbance before the sammelana.