The police had already began detaining the protesters, and on realising that the Ganesha idol was left on the bottom, an officer shortly picked up the idol and put it in a protected place, defined Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda to News18. Picture/X
The picture of the idol contained in the automobile, which had been assigned to move arrested protesters gathered at Bengaluru’s City Corridor towards the assault on a Ganesh Visarjan procession in Nagamangala has led to a lot chatter on social media
Lord Ganesha, generally known as Vignaharta or the remover of obstacles, discovered himself within the eye of a storm when his idol was seated inside a police van alongside protesters in Bengaluru.
The picture of the idol contained in the automobile, which had been assigned to move arrested protesters gathered at Bengaluru’s City Corridor towards the assault on a Ganesh Visarjan procession in Nagamangala has led to a lot chatter on social media. Bharatiya Janata Social gathering and Vishva Hindu Parishad leaders have been posting on social media about how the deity was “additionally amongst these arrested”. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken on the difficulty.
“In Congress-ruled Karnataka, even Ganpati is being put in jail,” he mentioned at an election rally in Haryana.
So, what actually occurred? After the Nagamangala incident, which noticed two communities clashing and led to arson, protests had been deliberate throughout the state by right-wing teams condemning the assault and searching for an NIA probe into the matter. A protest was organised within the state capital by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Ganesh Utsav Committee on the metropolis’s City Corridor space. They had been denied permission by the police for the protest, but a WhatsApp message was circulated asking individuals to assemble at City Corridor as a part of the protest. As per the foundations in Bengaluru, the designated space for protests is Freedom Park. When town police obtained details about plans for individuals to assemble at City Corridor, two platoons of policemen had been deployed.
Protesters began arriving in small teams, and by 11.30 am, there have been shut to twenty to 30 individuals gathered, elevating slogans inside the hour.
Because the protesters had gathered with out prior police permission, cops started taking them into custody and shifting them in direction of the parked police van. A senior police official, who didn’t need to be named, advised News18 {that a} group of people that claimed they had been taking a Ganesha idol for visarjan (immersion) joined the protest. They raised the Ganesha idol, which was round 1.55 ft tall, on their heads and commenced chanting slogans.
“The police had already began detaining the protesters, and on realising that the Ganesha idol was left on the bottom, our officer shortly picked up the idol and put it in a protected place,” defined Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda to News18.
Images present an inspector taking the idol and inserting it in an empty police van supposed for the protesters. The sight of Lord Ganesha alone within the van caught the attention of photographers, and the picture later went viral on social media. Later, the Ganesha idol was moved right into a police jeep when the protesters had been bundled into the van.
The BJP condemned the act of inserting the idol inside a police van. BJP MP Tejasvi Surya voiced his sturdy disapproval on social media website X.
This visible of Lord Ganesha in a police automobile is terrifying.Why is the Congress hell-bent on insulting our dieties, & belittling the assumption and religion of thousands and thousands of Hindus? pic.twitter.com/mFux03khJg
— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) September 13, 2024
The police commissioner countered this, saying: “How may we depart Lord Ganesha unattended? Our officer ensured that the idol was taken safely, and because it was meant to be taken for visarjan, the visarjan was finished in a neighborhood police station with all respect and devotion. The image of Ganesha contained in the van exhibits how we ensured the sanctity and respect of the idol, not in any other case.”
Forty individuals had been arrested for collaborating within the protest, which had been carried out with out permission from the police division.
Senior VHP chief Girish Bharadwaj referred to as the incident “heartbreaking and unlucky to see Lord Ganesha being taken away by police like a legal”. He acknowledged that it was a peaceable protest in Bengaluru towards the intelligence failure of the police in Nagamangala.
—Bhagavan Ganesha, together with Hindu activists, was detained by the Karnataka Police. The arrests adopted protests condemning the stone-pelting by Muslims on a Ganesha procession… pic.twitter.com/IZs40dPQHI
— Girish Bharadwaj (@Girishvhp) September 13, 2024
“There appear to be restrictions on celebrating Hindu festivals. Why don’t they impose restrictions on different communities as nicely? In Nagamangala, the organisers had been booked. Those that confronted lathicharge for being a part of a peaceable visarjan procession had been booked. That was what the protest at City Corridor was about. As an alternative, they took away the Ganesha idol and positioned it inside a Hoysala (police van). The best way the pictures present the cops operating with the idol, as if Ganesha himself had been a legal, was heart-wrenching,” Bharadwaj mentioned.