Karnataka: VHP Leader Threatens Violence Against Muslims In Coming Days

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Mangaluru Secretary Sharan Pumpwell threatened to orchestrate violence against the Muslim community in the coming days.

“The community has been shielding anti-nationals and supporting love jihad. In the coming days – a campaign will be started & it could result in violence,” he told reporters in Mangaluru.

In a direct threat, Pumpwell asked Muslim religious leaders not to encourage their youth into such marriages. “If you do not deal firmly with such youths, we will be forced to take legal action and it may lead to clashes,” he said. 

The term ‘Love Jihad’ is a hate campaign and false propaganda run by extremist Hindutva forces claiming that Muslim men lure non-Muslim girls, and trick them into marriage and force them to accept Islam.

Pumpwell, who is the former Bajrang Dal State president, has a history of issuing threats against Muslims and enjoys political patronage from the state government.

In a leaked video last year, then Karnataka Home Minister and now Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai was heard assuring Sharan Pumpwell and other Hindutva members that cases filed against them will be dropped. “We will remove (whatever) cases filed against you,” he had said.

Pumpwell rose through the ranks of the Bajrang Dal since joining in 2005. He was appointed the convener of the outfit’s Mangaluru division in 2011 and was promoted to the convener of Bajrang Dal for South Karnataka in 2016, reported TNM. Pumpwell and his group have gained a notorious reputation for their involvement in incidents of moral policing. He was named by the police along with 24 Bajrang Dal members in connection with an attack on a birthday party at a resort in 2011.