Video Source: IndiaToday

Yet another instance of moral policing was witnessed in the town of Mangaluru on 24th August. Self-proclaimed ‘Activist’ of right-wing outfits stripped a 28-year-old man naked and thrashed him after tying to a pole.  The man was allegadly found travelling with a girl in a car, at Babugudde, Attavar. The man is a resident of Kulur, he was with a girl from another community in the car when the ‘Activists ‘attacked them. They pulled them out of the car stripped him and tied him to an electric pole and thrashed. The woman escaped without much harm but she too was slapped for trying to come to her colleague’s defence. He was later hospitalized due to shock and injuries.

The man has logged a police complaint and said that he had come there just to give some money to the girl. The man is the manager of an accessories store in Mangalore and the woman works in the same store as a salesgirl. According to the man’s complaint to police, the woman had asked him for a loan of Rs. 2,000. They were on their way to an ATM so that he could withdraw cash when a gang of men armed with knives and staves accosted them, the man said as reported by Hindustan Times.

Police have arrested 14 of around 30 suspected Bajrang Dal activists who were taking turns to flog him for more than an hour.

Moral policing is more of an immoral rowdyism. No one is above the law and nobody can take law in his own hands.  If this continues there can only be darker days for society and people will have to live in fear and if this escalates we may see another ‘Taliban’ in rising.

This is not a first instance of moral policing in Mangalore. Mangalore is known for its often violent Hindu and Muslim vigilante groups. Their targets typically have been mixed groups of men and women and Hindus and Muslims: at a pub, a home stay, an ice-cream parlour, even school girls and boys posing playfully in a Whatsapp picture. Read the article here.