The Udupi CEN cops registered a fresh case against an unknown Instagram handle over threats to an ABVP girl student who joined the protests.
Nethra Jyothi College in Udupi. (Supplied)
Dissatisfied with progress in the police investigation in the Udupi “washroom video case”, members from the Akhila Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and BJP leaders, led by the Udupi MLA Yashpal Suvarna, are expected to meet Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot on Friday, 4 August.
“We held protests late last week, and also handed over a memorandum to the superintendent of police (SP),” Udupi MLA Yashpal Suvarna told South First.
“As we are disappointed with the state government’s perspective on the case, we asked for an independent agency or a central agency to probe the matter. However, it was not done, and we are headed to meet the Governor to discuss the way forward,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Udupi CEN police registered a case based on a complaint by a member of the ABVP, the student arm of the Sangh Parivar, alleging that she received threats from an unknown Instagram handle for taking part in the protest in Udupi against the three girl students who were caught filming another girl student in the washroom of their college.
The ABVP’s women students’ wing members had taken part in a protest on 27 July, where a few spoke to television reporters.
“One of the girls said this was not the first time such an incident had happened at the Nethra Jyothi Paramedical College. A similar incident had taken place in the college six months ago, and the college authorities brushed it aside when it was brought to their notice,” police sources told South First.
“This was alleged by a group of girl students from the ABVP, and one of the girls received a threat message on her Instagram handle from an unknown ID named ‘Jigar Tiger’,” they added.
The threat message had come the same day — 27 July — after which the student discussed the matter with her family and her ABVP colleagues, and subsequently lodged a complaint with the Udupi CEN police. The police have taken up a case of criminal intimidation under the IPC, along with appropriate sections under the Information Technology (IT) Act.
“The threat message was abusive and vulgar, and it looks like the Instagram handle is from a foreign country,” the police sources said.
Following demands from the ABVP and local BJP workers and supporters, the Udupi police changed the investigating officer (IO) from a police inspector-ranked officer to a deputy superintendent of police (DySP)-ranked officer on Saturday.
Initially, the suo motu case registered by the Malpe police was investigated by Circle Inspector (CI) Manjunath Gowda. The current IO is DySP-rank officer S Belliyappa.
On Friday, the three girl students of the college who were accused of filming a fellow collegemate in the institution’s washroom, surrendered before an Udupi court. The court subsequently granted them conditional bail.
The three students were booked under Sections 509 (word, gesture, or act intended to insult and/or outrage the modesty of a woman), 175 (intentionally omitting to produce a document or an electronic record to a public servant by a person legally bound to produce or deliver such material evidence), 205 (causing destruction of a document to prevent its production as evidence) read with 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A second FIR was registered — suo motu — against an online portal and a profile on X (formerly Twitter), said to belong to one Kalu Singh Chouhan, for allegedly peddling misinformation or rumour about the incident.
The portal was accused of using an unrelated visual clip — allegedly an old video from Tamil Nadu shot on a hidden cam, but with doctored audio to make it look like it was from Udupi — in one of its stories.
![[Left] File photo of BJP MLA Harish Poonja, who has been booked, and [right] Poonja sitting for a protest in front of Belthangady Police Station in the early hours of Sunday, 19 May, 2024.](https://s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media.thesouthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Harish-Poonja-and-Belthangady.jpg "Harish Poonja and Belthangady")
