Congress leaders detained at Mangaluru airport

Mangaluru City Police detained a team of Congress leaders on their arrival at Mangaluru International Airport on Friday afternoon. The leaders said they were in Mangaluru to console the families of Nausin (23) and Jalil Kudroli (49), who were killed during the police firing in Mangaluru on Thursday evening. They were protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in spite of prohibitory orders in the city.

The leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council, S.R. Patil; the former Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, Ramesh Kumar; the former Karnataka Home Minister, MB Patil, and other Congress leaders such as V.S. Ugrappa and Basavaraja Rayareddy, were part of the team.

S.R. Patil told mediapersons at the airport that they had come to console the families of the dead in Thursday’s firing. Stopping him (leader of the opposition in Legislative Council) amounted to a breach of privilege, he said.

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Earlier in the day, the Congress leaders from Dakshina Kannada district alleged that the police had taken high-handed acion by bursting tear gas shells inside the hospital and its premises in the city, where the injured in Thursday’s violent incidents were admitted.

K Harish Kumar, president of the Dakshina Kannada District Congress Committee and MLC, said that the lathi charge, lobbing of teargas shells and firing by the police in Bunder area in Mangaluru on Thursday evening were uncalled for. These incidents had led to the death of two persons, he said.

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