A lawyers' forum has demanded action against the organisers of a weapons training camp, reportedly, conducted by Sri Rama Sena, a right-wing organisation, in Bagalkot district.
In its complaint to the Karnataka DGP, the All-India Lawyers’ Association for Justice (AILAJ) demanded legal action citing media reports of the SRS imparting a six-day fire arms training to 186 participants in Todalbagi village under Savalagi police station limits in Bagalkot district.
"Such training camps have been held in the past by the right-wing organisations that have been disrupting peace and communal harmony through mobile lynching, moral policing and intimidation and violence against minorities, Dalits and progressive thinkers including the murder of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh, scholar M.M. Kalburgi and Arbaaz Mulla (Belagavi)," said Avani Chokshi, in the letter on behalf of the state committee of AILAJ.
Why is the Congress govt silent while the Hindutva extremist group Sri Ram Sene openly conducts training with air guns and lathis in #Jamkhandi, Bagalkot? Meanwhile, those showing solidarity with Palestine are being booked. This blatant double standard raises serious questions. pic.twitter.com/rdJS43meIc
— Mohammed Wajid Ahmed (@Wajid741122) January 5, 2025
Raising objection to the police's failing to file a suo motu case, AILAJ claimed these camps were aimed towards the "militarisation" of the Hindu youth who had been "radicalised" by Hindutva ideology.
"Allowing this to go unpunished amounts to normalising the belief that violent acts in furtherance of this ideology, and obviously aimed at Dalits, Muslims and Christians, in furtherance of Hindutva is perfectly legitimate and can be done with impunity in the state and disrupt peace in the future," stated Chokshi adding that the police had failed to register a complaint in Bagalkot was swift in booking activists protesting peacefully for the cause of Palestine.
Demanding the police to register criminal cases against both the participants and the organisers under Section 25 and 27 of the Arms Act, 1959 and Section 61 and 189 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2024, the lawyers urged the police to keep tabs "extremist" and "unconstitutional" forces.
