The incident is expected to add to the cops' work, especially in the run-up to the 10 May Karnataka Assembly elections.
Published Apr 14, 2023 | 12:08 AM ⚊ Updated Apr 14, 2023 | 12:09 PM
Bihari youth ranting alleging Hindi-speaking people are abused in Karnataka
The storm over false and misleading claims of attacks on Hindi-speaking migrant workers in Tamil Nadu by locals has barely settled. Now a video from Bengaluru with misleading claims is making the rounds on social media.
Video footage of a 20-year-old Bihar-origin man has gone viral on social media, prompting members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike to approach the police against him.
The video shows the youth, identified as Nitesh Kumar, going on a rant, claiming that Kannada-speaking people abused him at the eatery where he worked.
The police are evaluating their options, even as the eatery’s management said Nitesh quit his job after posting the video.
Even before the facts of the video could come to the fore, several social media handles deemed the video an example of “xenophobia of locals” with allegations of racism. The video has been shared by multiple handles with different claims.
Nitesh is said to have recorded the video around a week ago — on 7 April, to be exact.
He used to work at the Annapurneshwari Tiffin Centre on West of Chord Road in eastern Bengaluru.
The video shows Nitesh identifying himself as a resident of the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.
He then went on a lengthy rant in the video, recorded on his phone’s front camera in portrait mode, asking what certain people thought of the Hindi-speaking populace.
He then claimed that he was verbally abused for speaking in Hindi at his place of employment.
The one-minute-32-second video also showed him talking about it to people around him who had started to listen in.
The video also shows the man using abusive language and expletives against those he claimed had abused him. He is also seen throwing open a “challenge to Kannadigas” to beat him up.
Although he shared the video on Facebook and Twitter on 7 April, it went viral only on Thursday, 13 April, as people began sharing and reacting to it.
As the video went viral in Bengaluru and Bihar, a group of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike activists approached the Subramanyanagar police taking objection to the content and language used by the man in the video.
They petitioned the cops to take legal action against the youth for abusing Kannadigas in general.
“We are in receipt of their petition and we are seeking legal opinion from our seniors to go about it,” a senior police officer from Subramanyanagar police station told South First.
The incident is expected to add to the cops’ work, especially in the run-up to the 10 May Karnataka Assembly elections and their efforts to maintain the law-and-order situation throughout.
“As the video went viral on Thursday, with about 2 lakh views on Facebook and around 13 lakh views on Twitter by afternoon, we traced his phone number and contacted him. When we requested him to come to the police station to file a complaint, he refused,” a senior police officer told South First.
The cops went through his Facebook and Twitter profiles and learnt that Nitesh often shot such videos and posted them for his followers to “like”.
“He had several videos on his accounts related to films and his cooking sessions, for which he expected likes from his followers,” said the officer added.
The police learnt about the entire incident from Harsha, who owns Annapurneshwari Tiffin Centre.
Harsha told the police that Nitesh worked as a cook and a helper at his hotel for over a month, but quit soon after the incident.
Preliminary inquiries revealed that a group of three local youths came to the eatery on 7 April and ordered puliogare — a tamarind-flavoured rice dish. The trio then told the cook and the waiters that there was something off with the puliogare.
When Nitesh replied to them in Hindi, they apparently started abusing him as they did not understand what he was saying.
As they were paying the bill after finishing their food, Nitesh is said to have found that a note they gave was torn and asked them to give another note.
This led to heated arguments between them, after which the trio left the hotel. It was then Nitesh started shooting the video.
“The customers who came seemed like they hailed from a rural area and did not know any language other than Kannada. So, there was an altercation with the youngster who was working at the fast-food joint. We are in touch with the youngster who has now gone back to Bihar to get details from him and have launched our own inquiry,” said Pratap Reddy, Police Commissioner, Bengaluru. He also urged citizens to call up police helpline – 112- in case of any distress instead of taking to social media first. “Social media is not the platform on which we encourage people to rake up such issues. If we (police) do not address your issues, then please take it up with the media or social media but allow the police to act first,” Reddy appealed.
(This report has been updated with Bengaluru police commissioner’s quote)
