Mangaluru: Barely a day earlier, state’s home minister K J George was in the city on a whirlwind visit.
Within those few hours, he made several statements on the immoral rowdyism, wrongly referred to in the media as ‘moral policing’. He said that the government would show ‘zero tolerance’ towards such acts, he had said.
All that apart, the unruly bunch of self-appointed custodians of culture and public morals, hailing from different denominations and shade, still appear to be active, making a mockery of the warning from the minister and the government.
Arjun, of Kerala origin currently studying in a city college, was on a visit to a mall in the city with two young women, said to belong to two different faiths. also hailing from Kerala.
Noticing that one of the women belonged to a different faith, a group of men accosted them and questioned them being together. Before the situation turned worse, the Pandeshwar police intervened and took the victims to safety. After an investigation in the police station, they were allowed to go home.
Many peace-loving citizens expressed an apprehension that at this rate outsiders would hesitate to visit the city and that there could be a steady slump in the number of students from other states pursuing higher or professional studies in the district.
Enquiries with the police revealed that there are gangs of jobless youth loitering around the high-end shopping malls in the city. It is possible that a networking of security employees passing on information regarding soft targets visiting the malls to the trouble-makers, the sources said.