How Coastal Karnataka Became a Communal Flashpoint: The Abdul Rehman Murder and Beyond

On May 27, Abdul Rehman, a 34-year-old owner of a pickup truck who lived in Badagabellur village (also known as Koltamajalu) of Bantwal taluk in coastal Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district, received a call from an acquaintance called Deepak, who asked him to deliver a load of sand to his house in Kuriyala village five kilometres away. Rehman took along his trusted help of three years, Qalandar Shafi, a 30-year-old labourer, also from Badagabellur. The duo set off for Deepak’s house around 3 PM in Rehman’s Mahindra Bolero Pik-Up with 50 sacks of sand.

That was the last time Rehman’s family, consisting of his parents, siblings, wife and two little children, saw him. Shafi told Frontline that en route, Rehman noticed Deepak’s mother and younger brother walking along the road and gave them a lift. Both Rehman and Shafi knew Deepak’s family members and Shafi had been employed as a construction labourer in Deepak’s house for a month a few years ago. Shafi and Deepak had also worked alongside each other while building a temple in the town of Kalladka. As soon as the pickup reached Deepak’s home, the 21-year-old began to quarrel with Rehman about the quality of sand. Deepak’s mother and brother went inside, and then, everything exploded.

“I was sitting on the passenger side while Rehman was in the driver’s seat. Deepak was joined by four of his accomplices and all of them were carrying talwars (swords or machetes). They began to attack us, madly screaming in Tulu that they would kill us. They yelled: ‘You Bearys killed Suhas Shetty! Now it is your turn to die!’ Rehman held up his arm but they chopped it, slashed his face and cleaved his neck behind his right ear,” Shafi recounted. (‘Beary’ is the term used to describe the Muslim community of coastal Karnataka).

A couple of the attackers targeted Shafi as well, who suffered several injuries to his chest and elbow and almost lost his left thumb. As the attack on Rehman continued unabated and blood gushed from his jugular, the assailants were momentarily distracted, and Shafi seized the moment to flee for his life. He hid in one of the woody thickets that ensconce settlements in the region. Half an hour later, he was picked up by his friends. He named the five assailants while he was being taken to the hospital. “I was always a fast runner, and that is what saved my life but Rehman is gone,” Shafi said softly, ending his recollection of the macabre assault.

Also Read | Naveen Soorinje: ‘Communalism grew after land reforms’

After a thoughtful moment, he added that there had been a meeting of the Bajrang Dal a few days earlier where the plan to murder Rehman was hatched. “Rehman was not involved in any violence and had no criminal record. He was killed only because he was Muslim. A Muslim had to be sacrificed for the death of Suhas Shetty.”

Driven by vengeance

Suhas Shetty, the man whose name was invoked by Deepak and his accomplices during their brutal attack on Rehman and Shafi, was murdered on May 1 near Bajpe, an area close to Mangaluru International Airport on the outskirts of the district capital of Mangaluru. A member of the Bajrang Dal, Shetty was a suspect in the 2022 murder of a Muslim man named Mohammed Faazil. A few days before Shetty was killed, on April 27, a mob lynched a mentally unsound Muslim man named Ashraf near Kudupu on the outskirts of Mangaluru in the wake of the Islamophobia that had escalated in the country after the massacre of tourists in Pahalgam on April 22.

These three killings are part of a series of communal murders that have rocked Dakshina Kannada for almost 50 years. For residents and long-time observers of coastal Karnataka, there was nothing egregiously shocking about the latest killings. Shabbir Ahmed, a human rights activist based in Bantwal, commented that the violence is cyclical. “Every few years, provocative speeches are made by Hindutva activists and the communal temperature is ratcheted up, resulting in a few murders,” he said. “Everything subsides after this and resurges again after a lull as it is important for the Sangh Parivar to maintain a high communal frenzy in the region for political gains.”

Before this, three murders had taken place in July 2022: that of Masood, Praveen Nettaru, and Mohammed Faazil. Turning further back, the 2022 murders were said to be in revenge for six murders (the victims included Hindus and Muslims) that had taken place in 2017-18. On June 3, a report published in the Kannada newspaper Vartha Bharathi listed all the communal murders in the region. Its grisly tally was 49, and the first murder is said to have taken place in 1976.

A casual visitor to Mangaluru would find nothing unusual about the bustling city that marks it out as the locus of a region simmering with communal hatred. The economic prosperity of this multireligious polyphonic city, where one hears Tulu, Kannada, English, Hindi, and Beary among a mélange of other tongues, is instantly evident. For instance, there are no beggars on the streets or clusters of slums that are part of many large Indian cities. The city is certainly charming, with undulating narrow roads leading off from the main commercial boulevards and leading to dead-end streets with leafy old cottages and mansions that are suggestive of historically accumulated wealth. The city abounds with large hospitals, five-star hotels, and other commercial establishments. Mangaluru is also a leading international educational hub, famous for its engineering and medical courses. In terms of human development indices, the district regularly scores very high, coming in only after Bengaluru in Karnataka.

Simmering tensions

Large temples, mosques, and churches, sometimes located cheek by jowl, are present all over this urban area. The denizens of Mangaluru seem industrious and a heavy downpour—of which there are many during the monsoons—which would have brought a city like Bengaluru to a standstill, hardly disturbs the tempo of the city. The area names in Mangaluru and the names of the villages in the hinterland carry a tinge of unfamiliarity for a Bengalurean and reveal the geographical and historical disconnect that the region has had with the rest of Karnataka, a divide long enforced by the barrier of the Western Ghats. The caste groups native to the region are also uncommon in other parts of Karnataka. On one end of the city and the district is the Arabian Sea, whereas its rural hinterland is hilly and dominated by areca nut and coconut plantations, among other cash crops.

But beyond the glossy façade of this energetic and cosmopolitan metropolis, characteristics that extend into the wider hinterland, there lurks an intensely communally polarised society that has pitted its Hindu and Muslim members in an endless cycle of violence and one-upmanship. The region’s unique demographics and political economy have also played a huge role in this: the relatively higher Muslim population in the region (more than 24 per cent in Dakshina Kannada district as per the 2011 census) and the region’s general financial affluence have also benefited the minority community. Hence, members of the Muslim community, who are usually at the receiving end of communal violence in most parts of the country, defiantly challenge the Hindu right-wing onslaught in the area, which, for a long time, has been infamously known as the “laboratory of Hindutva” in Karnataka. Some scholars have begun to argue that one cannot continue to refer to the region as the “laboratory” of Hindutva, as whatever experiment that was carried out for over half a century has reached fruition.

Professor Valerian Rodrigues, who retired from Jawaharlal Nehru University 10 years ago and returned to live in Mangaluru, his native place, told Frontline that American political scientist Paul. R. Brass’ thesis of a “riot regime” is the best theoretical concept that could help one understand the violent communal grappling that has come to define the region. Brass, in his study of north Indian cities like Aligarh and Meerut, argued that an “institutionalised system of riot production” had been created in certain cities since Independence. In such places, communal violence is not spontaneous but “…the production of such riots involves calculated and deliberate actions by key individuals, the conveying of messages, recruitment of participants, and other specific types of activities, especially provocative ones, that are part of a performative repertoire.”

Dakshina Kannada last witnessed a major communal riot in 2006, but this concept is useful in understanding how the murder of someone belonging to the “other” religion—often preceded by incendiary speeches from Sangh Parivar members—fits into the political script unfolding in the region. A senior police official based in Mangaluru said that “structures of political patronage for criminal communal activities have been institutionalised as it leads to political gains.”

According to investigative journalist Naveen Soorinje, Hindu communal outfits in the region were struggling to recruit cadres for their organisations and were thus “recruiting directly from criminal gangs to further the cause of Hindutva.”

Politics at play

The RSS and the BJP (and its earlier avatar, the Jana Sangh), plus its allied groups in the Sangh Parivar such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, have engendered communal polarisation in the region. This has been done by taking advantage of the social and political economic upheavals rooted in Hindu-Muslim business rivalries over the past 40-50 years, as has been explained in detail by this correspondent in an earlier article.

The communal polarisation has become so normalised by now that many politically unaffiliated activists, who have fought for decades against the bigoted politics of the Sangh Parivar, did not dwell at length on the Hindu right wing’s pernicious role in the recent murders in their discussions with Frontline. They merely highlighted the slew of inflammatory speeches after the murder of Suhas Shetty that, they stated, led to the killing of Rehman. The question on the role of the Sangh Parivar evoked ennui; they had dealt with it so many times that it was not worth repeating; it was the de facto state of politics and society and the Sangh Parivar was not going to change its tactics as the BJP had benefited tremendously from its sectarian politics in coastal Karnataka.

The common prefatory refrain was this: “The Sangh Parivar has turned this region into a communal cauldron, profited from it, and its members deliver hate speeches with impunity. Everyone knows that. What action will be taken against them?” The activists would then recount the incidents that had drawn national attention to coastal Karnataka. These include the attacks on churches in 2008, the attack on a pub in 2009, the home stay attack in 2013, the many instances of “moral policing”, the killing of Muslims who were allegedly involved in cow smuggling and, most recently, the ban on wearing hijabs in classrooms, which was first enforced in a college in the neighbouring district of Udupi in 2022. 

Sharan Pumpwell, the Karnataka Joint Secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who is based in Mangaluru, disagreed with the assessment that the affiliates of the Sangh Parivar were behind the heightened communal temperature in the region. He insisted that Hindus were only reacting to Muslim attacks against them over many decades. “We did not start the fire and are not responsible for the violence. We, as followers of Hindutva, are reacting to radical Islamism to protect our faith which is our right.” he said, while talking to Frontline in his office, which was bedecked with large photographs of past RSS sarsanghchalaks (chiefs). According to Pumpwell, there were four contentious issues, the resolution of which would bring peace in the area: cow slaughter, “love jihad,” the stance taken by Muslims on international issues (such as Palestine) and alleged Muslim provocations during the peaceful conduct of Hindu festivals. “These issues are emotionally affecting us” he said.

Pumpwell termed the murders of Muslims as “accidental [not planned]”. He claimed that in Ashraf’s case, it was because he shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” while in Rehman’s case, it was a “personal fracas”. But, the deaths of Hindu activists such as Praveen Nettaru (in 2022) and Suhas Shetty “were planned killings by Muslims,” he said. “The NIA (National Investigation Agency) should open an office in Mangaluru to keep tabs on SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) and PFI (Popular Front of India) whose members roam freely and threaten Hindu karyakartas (activists),” said Pumpwell, adding that there were around 5,000 active Hindu activists affiliated to outfits such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and Bajrang Dal in Dakshina Kannada.

Muslim outfits’ hold sway over the minorities

The SDPI is the political wing of PFI, the Muslim cadre-based group that was banned in 2022 by the Union government. It has an extraordinary influence among Muslims in coastal Karnataka. Even though the PFI was banned, the SDPI continues to thrive even though its influence is limited in Karnataka beyond the coast. It has yet to win a seat in the Legislative Assembly, but draws tremendous support from Muslims in coastal Karnataka who view it as an outfit that can challenge the brazen communal campaigns of the Sangh Parivar. Considering the heft that Hindu right-wing outfits draw from their national organisational networks and a sympathetic Union government that is actively hostile towards Muslim identity-based political organisations, a parity cannot be drawn between the Sangh Parivar and the SDPI. But, in Dakshina Kannada at least, the SDPI with its disciplined members is clearly seen as a countervailing force.

Shabbir Ahmed said that the SDPI has been very successful in building up a “narrative of Muslim victimhood” in the region. Muneer Katipalla, Dakshina Kannada district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), commented that the “social media world of Muslims in coastal Karnataka was in the hands of the SDPI.” A senior police official stated that members of the banned PFI were routinely involved in criminal activities “including the murder of Shetty.”

Jaleel Krishnapura, the Dakshina Kannada district president of the SDPI, disagreed with the police official’s comment that his party was involved in criminal activities. Instead, he pointed his finger at the hydra-headed Sangh Parivar. He told Frontline, “The Sangh Parivar is not letting anyone live in peace in the region apart from upper caste Hindus. It is only the lower-caste boys belonging to castes such as Billava, Bunt, Mogaveera, and Dalits who are being killed among Hindus.” Krishnapura emphasised the discriminatory nature of the investigations: “In the case of the murder of Nettaru, the case was handed over to the NIA, but even when Pumpwell publicly acknowledged that he had a role in Faazil’s killing, he is not being investigated and the case was not even deemed serious enough to be handed over to the NIA. Shetty’s case was taken over by the NIA. Why are Hindu and Muslim murder victims treated differently?”

When asked what the ideology of the SDPI was and why it was so popular among Muslims, Krishnapura pointed to the preamble of the Constitution which hung behind his table: “The Constitution is our ideology and we work towards ensuring equal rights for all citizens, including Muslims and Dalits.” According to Krishnapura, it is this ideological thrust that has ensured that it has more than 10,000 active cadres in Dakshina Kannada, which, while mainly Muslim in composition, also includes Dalits and Christians.

Congress’ indifference

For Krishnapura, even the Indian National Congress is a prejudiced player in the dangerous religious game that is being played out in coastal Karnataka. As evidence, he stated that after Ashraf’s brutal lynching by a Hindu mob, the Mangaluru Police were given clear instructions to not file a First Information Report immediately against the members of the mob. Initially a case of unnatural death was filed. “They also included a false statement that Ashraf had screamed ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ when the FIR was finally registered after a considerable delay,” Krishnapura added. While this point about the slogan’s falsified inclusion in the FIR could not be independently confirmed by Frontline, Manavi, a member of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties’ Karnataka unit, who was part of a fact-finding team on Ashraf’s lynching, did confirm that there was considerable delay in the filing of the FIR. “Despite the police having seen the body of the deceased, the delay in the registration of the FIR is in complete violation of the Supreme Court judgment of Tehseen S. Poonawalla [2018],” Manavi said, giving credence to the accusation that the police behaved in a partisan manner in this case.

This disenchantment with the Congress that Krishnapura expressed is widespread in Dakshina Kannada and is evident in many conversations. The phrase hondaanike raajakiye (adjustment politics) was often used to describe the political opportunism of the Congress. The Congress came to power in Karnataka in 2023 after a landslide mandate that gave it 135 out of 224 seats in the Legislative Assembly. There was largescale discontent with the BJP after Basavaraj Bommai’s disastrous tenure during which the State government aggressively turned rightward in its politics, giving a fillip to Hindu vigilantism. But, even though there was a wave in favour of the Congress, the party could not breach the religiously polarised districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in coastal Karnataka, where its strike rate was dismal. In Dakshina Kannada, the party could win only two out of eight constituencies, and it was washed out in Udupi, losing all five constituencies to the BJP.

Said K. K. Ashraf, Vice President of the Dakshina Kannada unit of the Congress and former Mayor of the Mangaluru City Corporation, “The Congress gave us an assurance that once they came to power, the communal situation would be controlled. Members of the Bajrang Dal were cowering in fear when the Congress was elected but nothing changed.” After Shetty’s murder, Ashraf said, Pumpwell gave a provocative speech and declared a bandh in Dakshina Kannada during which four Muslim men were attacked. “Muslim leaders of the Congress pleaded with the state leadership saying the situation was escalating. BJP MLA Harish Poonja and Bharat Kumdel of the Bajrang Dal openly targeted Muslims in hate speeches after Shetty’s murder. We demanded the arrest of Kumdel and urged the government to transfer top police officials but no one heeded our pleas. If the Congress had taken some action, Rehman’s murder would not have happened.”

In the public outpouring that followed Rehman’s murder, thousands of Muslims participated in his cortege as it proceeded from Mangaluru to Badagabellur. According to Ashraf, SDPI cadres also took part, and this large, angry horde of approximately 25,000 men aggressively demanded that Muslim leaders of the Congress resign from their posts, after which 300-400 leaders of the Congress at various levels of the party in Dakshina Kannada, including Ashraf, resigned. This massive charged response finally nudged the Congress into some delayed action: The Mangaluru Commissioner of Police was replaced (with sources stating that the new Commissioner has been given a free hand sans any political interference to rein in the situation), an Anti-Communal Task Force was formed in the three districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Shivamogga, and a Congress delegation was constituted to analyse the reasons for the worsening communal situation in coastal Karnataka.

Business interests over community welfare

Muneer Katipalla held U. T. Khader—the four-term Congress MLA from Mangalore and incumbent speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly—directly responsible for the Congress’ failure in combating communalism in Dakshina Kannada. “Khader is only concerned about his business interests and is the unspoken leader of the party from the district, as all other office-bearers are dummies. He is the only Congress politician who regularly wins from Dakshina Kannada but what people do not realise is that SDPI is gaining popularity because of him, as Muslims are turning towards the SDPI because they do not see Khader as someone who can address their vulnerabilities.” The surge in support for the SDPI among Muslims had led to a situation where—Katipalla argued—“even if secular Hindus want to support the Congress, they hesitate because of the politics of the SDPI and they end up voting for the BJP as they have no choice.”

Also Read | Karnataka’s Siddi athletes: How an African diaspora community overcame historical isolation through sports

M. G. Hegde, a Mangaluru-based spokesperson of the Congress, said that “the situation here continues to deteriorate because there is a strong nexus between the BJP and elite Muslims, many of whom are in the Congress. All work contracts are given to them.” Hegde, whose comments assume salience because of his past association with the RSS, said, “The Congress is failing here because it does not know how to counter the RSS’ ideology. It does not know how to present its ideology without harming Hindus and that is why it is accused of practising ‘soft Hindutva’. Business is a part of politics here and the Congress is confused. Neither has the party addressed its organisational problems nor has it tried to address the communal problem.”

Dinesh Hegde Ulepady, a Mangaluru-based advocate, used an anecdote to evocatively explain this nexus between the Sangh Parivar and elite Muslims: “In 2023, I wanted to hold an inter-religious iftar gathering during the month of Ramzan before the Karnataka elections to spread the message of communal harmony. I shared my idea with the wealthiest Muslim businessman in the city. He was excited by my idea and then hijacked it completely. He organised an iftar where he invited the most notorious members of the Sangh Parivar. I organised a separate iftar where we focussed on the message of harmony, but that is the day I realised this alliance between elite Hindus and Muslims was responsible for the communal situation here.” Ulepady also, like Katipalla, accused Khader of appeasing prominent members of the Sangh Parivar. “Khader is unwilling to participate in any event for communal harmony but ensures that he is there at all Hindu right-wing events. This is demoralising the Congress workers here. The Congress leadership is indifferent to karavali (coastal Karnataka) and it needs to give a chance to sincere workers who can challenge the Sangh Parivar ideologically” he said.

Shrinivas Karkala, a Mangaluru-based commentator, scathingly said, “Dealers have become leaders in the Congress. Once upon a time the district produced robust ideological leaders like Oscar Fernandes, Janardhan Poojari, and Veerappa Moily but look at its leaders now; do they even understand the ideology of the Congress? There is a large chunk among Hindus who are looking for an alternative to the BJP but they continue to support the BJP as they do not want to vote for the Congress.” Naveen Soorinje was more forthcoming in his acerbic assessment of the party: “Congress leaders in Dakshina Kannada are not interested in communal harmony and 90 per cent of their leaders follow the ideology of the RSS.”

The role of political and social outfits such as the Congress, the wider Sangh Parivar (which includes the BJP) and the SDPI in fanning the communal fires in the region does not portend well for the future of inter-religious relations in the region. According to a senior police official in Mangaluru who Frontline spoke to, revenge plots by both Hindu and Muslim outfits were already being hatched, raising fears that the cycle of communal murders could continue. “What really needs to happen is religious integration, as a vertical division is present between Hindus and Muslims in coastal Karnataka and this is only widening,” he said. “The police can only implement the law but community leaders really need to ask the question: Are rich Hindus or Muslims dying? It is the poor and the illiterate who are paying the price with their lives in this cycle of violence.”