Hubballi College Student Murder Ignites Political Conflict in Karnataka Between Congress and BJP

The murder of a corporator's daughter on Hubballi’s college campus sparked a row between Congress and BJP in Karnataka. Congress said the incident was the result of a personal dispute while Prahlad Joshi, Union Minister and BJP candidate for the Dharwad LS seat with other leaders of BJP labelled it as ‘Love Jihad’ and a failure of law and order under the Congress government.  Here, Home Minister Dr. G.Parameshwara said there is no ‘love jihad’ angle. The two were in love. The boy stabbed the girl and she tried to maintain a distance from him. CM Siddaramaiah said there were personal reasons behind the murder. The law and order in the state is good, he added.

23-year-old victim Neha Hiremath’s father Niranjan Hiremath who’s a Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation Corporator led to heated responses after his daughter’s death. He lashed out and said no girl should undergo the trauma and ‘love jihad’ is spreading rapidly. Hindu girls are being targeted. There’s an entrenched system and the buck doesn’t stop at just one person. We should put an end to this, he added. Neha was stabbed to death on the campus of BVB College on Thursday. She was a first-year master of computer application student. The suspect Fayaz Khondunaik, her classmate, was later arrested. The boy bore 10 stab wounds.

Police Commissioner Renuka Sukumar said the accused has been remanded in judicial custody. Widespread protests were reported in Hubballi-Dharwad with other districts like Bengaluru and Belagavi. Organizations like Anjuman-e-Islam of Hubballi and BJP’s students’ wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had also protested and demanded the closure of school colleges in Hubballi Dharwad to get justice in the case and sought capital punishment for the accused. ABVP requested the government to hand over the Neha probe to CBI. Students under the banner of ABVP formed a human chain in Belagavi. The incident evoked strong condemnation by many organizations like AIMS, AIDSO, etc. in many districts of North Karnataka with thousands of students and citizens attended the funeral of Neha on Friday. Former CM Basavraj Bommai said the government must form a SIT (Special Investigation Team) for a detailed investigation of the case.