Bengaluru: The Bellandur police have cracked down on Kannada activists early Friday and arrested six members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) for painting black Hindi signboards at Ecospace Business Park.
The incident occurred at the food court of Ecospace business park on Wednesday when KRV activists barged into the premises, shouted pro-Kannada slogans and defaced Hindi signboards.
The arrested have been identified as Arvind, Manjunath, Harish, Varun, Arun and Praveen.
According to an eyewitness, KRV activists came all of a sudden and started abusing the food court staff for using Hindi signboards. One of the activist said, "What stops you from using Kannada on signboards. We won't allow Hindi culture to mushroom here. If you want to stay here, you have to get along with our culture," the witness added.
The pro-Kannada activists painted all the signboards on the premises with black paint they had brought along with them, the witness added.
The pro-Kannada organisations began anti-Hindi protest last month when the language was officially used on the signboards in Metro stations, replacing English in many places.
Terming it as an 'imposition of Hindi', pro-Kannada groups had launched a social media campaign under the hashtag #NammaMetroHindiBeda.
