Recreation club manager deposes before commission

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, May 11: Kishore Kumar, the manager of Sridevi Recreation Club, located in the vicinity of the Milagres Church, deposed before the Justice B. K. Somashekar Commission of Inquiry on Monday. He maintained that neither the Bajarang Dal activists nor the police committed any atrocities against the Christians during the protests of mid-September 2008. 

Advocate B. Ibrahim, who is representing the Christian community, cross-examined the deposer and wanted to know if the police had instigated him to file an affidavit. The deposer replied that his club does not require police assistance to run smoothly, adding that nobody had instigated him to file an affidavit. He admitted that he had filed it himself to prevent injustice being meted out to the police. 

Kumar also said that some people had thrown stones from inside the church. He said that the Christians staged a protest in spite of prohibitory orders being clamped on the city. He added that he did not see anybody throw stones at the church from outside.

He said that he and his friends had witnessed the lathi charge and stone-throwing by the police, adding that the police did not gatecrash the church. He claimed that the police acted only when the situation went out of hand. 

Kumar said that he does not belong to the Bajarang Dal. The advocate for the police and the state government also cross-examined Kumar.