Lights going off during Maddur stone pelting creates doubt, says police official

Mandya (Karnataka), Sep 9 (PTI) The lights going off during the stone pelting at the Ganesha idol immersion procession in Maddur on September 7 raises doubts about whether the incident was pre-planned and an investigation is on in this regard, IGP (Southern Range) M B Boralingaiah said on Tuesday.

He said the situation in Maddur, where tension prevailed following the stone pelting incident, is currently peaceful and the police are in full control of the situation.

22 people have been arrested and sent to judicial custody. Regarding the suspected conspiracy that might have led to the incident, "we will go to the roots," he added.

"We have verified CCTV. The preliminary information available is that the lights were turned off when the incident happened. A stone was thrown, it is seen in the CCTV images. But, was there a conspiracy, how it happened, and what is the root cause? All these things are being investigated," Boralingaiah told reporters here.

Asked whether the incident was preplanned, he said, "At this stage, it cannot be said it was preplanned. But definitely lights turning off gave us doubts on whether there was a plan. It will be verified, and those behind it will be found." All the arrests were made with evidence for their involvement in stone pelting, he said.

"There were CCTV images, videos. Arrests were made after analysing them. If anyone is in the background, whether it was preplanned, all those things will be investigated in detail." Noting that the stone pelting incident happened around 7 pm on Sunday during the procession for which there was a retaliation, the IGP said, the police officials and personnel deployed there immediately dispersed the crowd within five minutes as there were chances of things spiralling out.

Additional forces were also deployed and preventive actions were taken to ensure that things don't go out of control.

He said, minimum required force was used by police on Monday to control the protesters, who were protesting against the Sunday incident, as they planned to barge into some sensitive areas.

Stating that required bandobast is in place in the wake of a Maddur bandh call given, Boralingaiah said.

A peace meeting is being held under the leadership of the district in-charge Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy later in the day, where discussion will also be held regarding the mass Ganesh idol immersion planned for Wednesday. PTI KSU ADB