Published Jul 03, 2025 | 4:27 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 03, 2025 | 4:27 PM
Dharwad ASP Narayan Baramanni.
Synopsis: Dharwad ASP Narayan Baramanni, who had recently submitted his resignation, reported back to duty at the SP office. Baramanni has submitted a request to the state government seeking voluntary retirement from service nearly two months after being publicly reprimanded by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Dharwad Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Narayan Baramanni, who had recently submitted his resignation, reported back to duty at the Dharwad Superintendent of Police (SP) office on Thursday, 3 July, after holding discussions with the senior official.
Baramanni submitted a request to the state government seeking voluntary retirement from service nearly two months after being publicly reprimanded and subjected to a slapping gesture by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
When approached by the media, Baramanni refrained from making detailed comments and said: “I belong to a disciplined service. The Chief Minister and Home Minister have already spoken to me, and I usually don’t speak to the media. For now, I’m simply reporting for duty.”
The incident occurred during the Congress party’s ‘Save the Constitution’ rally held in Belagavi on 28 April. A group of BJP women workers, dressed in black, disrupted Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s speech by raising slogans against the Congress government.
Visibly angered by the disruption, Siddaramaiah summoned the local police officials in charge, demanding, “Who is this SP? What have you been doing? Who are all these people shouting slogans?”
When neither the local ASP nor DSP responded, ASP Baramanni rushed to the dais and was immediately met with a slapping gesture by the chief minister.
Video footage of the incident, which later went viral, showed Siddaramaiah raising his hand in anger. Though he appeared to restrain himself from actually striking the officer, Baramanni was seen flinching, prompting senior Congress leaders to intervene and defuse the situation.
“Having been publicly insulted and humiliated by the behaviour of the Honourable Chief Minister on a public platform for a mistake I did not commit, I have no other option but to voluntarily resign and I request that you accept this,” Baramanni wrote in an emotional letter dated 28 June and addressed to the Chief Secretary.
“Having been unable to secure justice for myself, how can I work towards securing justice for others? I may have escaped from being slapped in public by the Honourable Chief Minister, but not from the public humiliation.”
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil with inputs from Nolan Patrick Pinto.)
