Bengaluru: Following the brutal assault on the Tanzanian girl, Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) Aswathnarayan P. of Yeshwanthpur has been suspended for not supervising the probe effectively.
Earlier, four police officers, including a police inspector, were suspended after City Police Commissioner N.S. Megharikh reviewed a report submitted by Additional Commissioner of Police, West, Charan Reddy on the alleged policemen’s laxity even as mob at Hesaraghatta went on the rampage, stripped a Tanzanian girl student and burnt two cars on Sunday night.
The suspended officials have been identified as Praveen Babu, the police inspector, Manjunath, a constable, attached to the Peenya police station, V. Jagdish, constable attached to Soladevanahalli police station, and C.K. Honnesh, a traffic police constable with the Jalahalli traffic police station.
The report revealed that Constables Manjunath and Jagdish were at the spot when the Tanzanian girl was stripped and assaulted, but failed to protect the victim. They could have alerted their senior officials about the seriousness of the incident, or called for more backup so that it could have been sent to avert the incident.
It was a clear dereliction of duty as they failed to control the mob when it went berserk. The victim, too, who has given a statement to the police that the two constables did not protect her from the mob and stood watching despite she running towards them seeking help and intervention, the report stated. The two constables’ statements corroborated with that of the victim’s version, and the two were placed under suspension.
Inspector G. Praveen Babu not only failed to handle the situation, but also did not follow up the case, leading to a major embarrassment for the state government. Honnesh, who was deputed on duty at the accident spot, failed to alert his seniors about the rampaging mob and failed to perform his duties as per the standard operating procedure, the report stated.
The state government submitted a report to the officials of Ministry of External Affairs, who arrived in the city on Friday. Trying to brush it off as a case of road rage and mob fury, the state officials refused to term it a racist attack.
