Bengaluru: “Dear Karnataka government, random arrest of people in the name of some ridiculed strange act, won’t help you. Pleasefocus on governance. And do the needful. #EmergencyInKarnataka,” said Karnataka BJP in a tweet.
The opposition party accused the Congress-JD(S) government of imposing an emergency like situation in the state.
The BJP’s statement comes after a journalist of a web portal and another person were arrested for allegedly circulating fake news and a morphed photo of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and a Kannada actress.
The arrested persons were A Gangadhar, owner of UKSuddi.in, and Ajith Shetty Heranje, a BJP sympathiser.
Slamming the arrests, State BJP General Secretaries Arvind Limbavali and C T Ravi accused the Kumaraswamy government for their action on nationalists in the last few days, whereas those abusing Hindus are roaming free.
Limbavali tweeted, “In the last 1 week Cong-JDS coalition in Karnataka has arrested 5 nationalist youths for raising their voice against corrupt & divisive administration of @hd_kumaraswamy The pseudo secular parties have imposed #EmergencyInKarnataka by curbing the freedom of expression of citizens.”
“CONgress – JD (S)Government has brutally murdered Democracy by arresting Nationalists on flimsy reasons. People who attempted to divideHinduism and Vested Interests who abuse Hindus on a dailybasis are roaming free mocking at the Law. #EmergencyInKarnataka,” said Ravi in his tweet.
The BJP listed out the people arrested in the recent past and notable among them are the arrest of journalist Hemanth Kumar for allegedly circulating on social media a ‘fake letter’ purportedly written by state Home minister M B Patil to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi in 2017 on religion tag to the Lingayat sect, and that of a BJP supporter from Hubballi, Shruti Bellakki, for her viral video, where she appealed to Lingayats to be cautious about the conspiracy against Hinduism to divide it by giving religion tag to Lingayat sect for political gain.