So Who Murdered the Mysore Students?

There is a small town called HuNasuru (translated as the town of tamarind), or Hunsur as pronounced, near Mysuru (Mysore) in southern Karnataka. This town popped into state level news off late due to a kidnapping of a local merchant's son along with his friend, on the day they were going to take exams. Many kidnappings for ransom happen across India, but something was special with these two 20 ish year olds' case.

Needless to keep you in suspense.. that's POLITICS! Precisely, Crime, Terror and Political links. Read on to get a bigger picture of why a small town near Mysore is today becoming a national news material.

In 2006, a BJP leader Sukananda Shetty was murdered in Mangaluru (Mangalore) in coastal Karnataka. Since murder of right wing politicians in India could lead to Jihadi-criminal nexus, police went in the right direction. The accused, the underworld operative Madoor Isubbu, started spilling beans and the two names that popped up were Popular Front of India (PFI) and Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD). 

After four years, in early 2010, KM Shareef of PFI said in a public meet: 'Muslims have been denied their constitutional rights'. It would have been a routine meet demanding reservation for minorities, unless one had a vague recollection of this gentleman. Wasn't he the same KM Shareef who lashed out at Bhajrang Dal, as the leader of KFD three years back, at the town hall in Mangaluru? So, essentially, KFD is not that different from PFI. But wait a minute.. it gets interesting as they had other avatars too in the neighbouring Kerala.

In July 2010, a bizarre hand chopping happened in Kerala. A Christian professor, lost his right hand as a punishment for his 'blasphemy' by setting a 'wrong' question in his college.  

Lo behold... the same PFI was linked for this merciless incident, and the accused arrested by Kerala police. This incident caused an outrage on social networks as well as in Kerala politics. Everyone from right to left condemned the undemocratic 'sharia' punishment in a democratic country. However, what most mainstream media outlets didn't tell Indians is that the very same PFI had launched a political outlet called Social Democratic Party of India or SDPI, that had supported Congress-led UDF coalition in Kerala, in the past several elections! Check this very alarming quote from the above link of 'The Daily Pioneer', a reputed national newspaper.

(Kerala) Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan faces allegations that PFI activists had campaigned for him in Thalassery in the 2006 Assembly election.  

Here is another reputed English paper of India, The Hindu, also reporting on April 04, 2009, that PFI to back UDF in 18 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Needless to elaborate, most big name media outlets, shamefully, hid the link between PFI being an election supporter of Congress party in Kerala, during the professor hand chop incident. You can draw your own conclusion as to why :)

Moving ahead; before the Kerala elections of 2011, police chargesheeted 27 PFI guys. One more opportunity for the 'mainstream' media of India to tell the people, which political party had the support of these guys.. But no hype at all!

Now to this month's shameful incident. The same Congress/UDF supporters in politics, KFD kidnaps a rich student near Mysore in June 2011, with his friend. It's known now that one of the key accused had known knew the father of Sudheendra (21) and planned to extract Rs.5,00,00,000 ransom after calculating the business cash flow. The other student Vignesh (20) was also abducted to remove the trace of evidence. 

When ransom discussions, even after many calls (30-40 SIMs used it seems) failed, KFD murdered the students. They had tried to hide them in Tamil Nadu too, but had failed. Yesterday, police arrested 6 murderers belonging to KFD (supposedly merged with PFI alias SDPI).

The following is an excerpt, straight from Karnataka home minister R.Ashok's claims.

Alleging that the outfit might have links with terrorist organisations, Ashoka said he would discuss the matter with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and top police officers on whether the KFD could be banned. “I took personal interest in the case as it was a prestige issue for the go­ve­r­nm­ent and the police dep­artment. The government will set up a special court, request for a special public prosecutor for speedy trail,” Ashoka said.

While providing details about the KFD, police sources said the six arrested are active members of the outfit and operated from its Mysore and Hunsur branches. The KFD, a senior police officer said, works on issues related to minorities and backward communities and several of its activists were allegedly involved in communal riots in Mangalore and Udupi.

On August 15, 2010, some KFD cadres made an attempt to hoist the flag of a neighbouring country. Adil and Ataulla Khan were involved in nearly four cases each of murder and attempt-to-murder. They were in Gulbarga prison for three months and later managed to obtain bail, Ashoka said. 

Sum up the murder of a Mangaluru BJP member, the hand chopping of a Kerala prof and the current murder of two Mysore students. Do you also wonder by now, why the 'secular' media is not hyping these, particularly the political connections that are apparent to a routine follower of news? If you scratch your head and recall, a far more trivial pub incident from Mangaluru was hyped 24*7 on national networks for months, as the accused were by pro-Hindu groups :)

For years its known at the local level, that the banned terror outfit SIMI has reincarnated as KFD and PFI  - There were open calls for their ban too. But no ban happened resulting in this tragic loss of lives of students :(

There are two take aways:

Either the Mysore killers are not belonging to Congress political allies PFI, if we have to believe PFI's statements. In this case, the Karnataka BJP home minister has a lot to explain why he is considering the ban on KFD.

 OR

These killers are from the same KFD/PFI/SDPI/Congress political ideology. In that case, will 'RSS more dangerous than SIMI' Rahul Gandhi spend time visiting the Mysore grieving families?

Let's wait and see how things unfold.. If you know more intricacies of this tangle, which media doesn't talk much, share in the comments for others' benefits.