Rioting and right wing in communal cauldron north Karnataka

"There was a communal riot every day in north Karnataka for six straight days to Monday. What was the police doing, and can they be trusted to put out future fires? Luckily nobody died but hundreds were injured and properties worth crores were lost in the riots: Mudhol-September 23, Chikkodi and Surpur-24th, Dharwad and Surpur-25th, Dharwad and Koujalagi-26th, Belgaum-27th and 28th. There were signs everywhere for weeks that riots might break out in the state. The incident -- where Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists stripped a Muslim man at a marketplace in Mangalore, tied him to a pole and flogged him for an hour in full public view for being friends with a Hindu girl on August 24 -- was a sign. The broad daylight assassination of rationalist MM Kalburgi on August 30 in Dharwad was a sign. The open threats issued to rationalists and intellectuals after Professor Kalburgi’s killing were also signs that something big might happen. The riot during Ganesh puja in Janata colony of Mudhol was slow cooking for weeks before it was served on the night of September 23rd. Hindus and Muslims in the area had clashed just two months earlier during the procession of Durgowwa, a local Hindu deity. There were a few close shaves during Ramadan as well. A week before the Ganesh puja, the Sri Rama Sene entered this restive theatre and put up a large banner about the festival outside the local mosque. Not to be outdone, the Muslims promptly put up a poster of their own outside the mosque in the name of Tipu Sultan..."