Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jan 7: The report prepared by an organization has found remarkable fall in the number of communal incidents in coastal districts of Karnataka. As per a report prepared by Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum, there has been a decline in the number of incidents of communal hatred, and that the number of incidents registered a downward trend of 34 percent over the previous year.

The study report is titled 'A Chronicle of Communal Incidents in Coastal Districts of Karnataka'. The report has some notable observations. President of the organization, Suresh Bhat B, claims that there has been increase in the number of hate speeches and messages but most of them were in social media.

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In the recent assembly election, the report mentions, that BJP won all the seats in Udupi district and all but one in Dakshina Kannada, where Congress got one seat. The trend showed that there was sharp increase in communal incidents just before and during the election campaign. The forum concludes that this has made it amply clear that objective of those behind these incidents was to crystallize votes in favour of a particular group. He says that caste equations too had a role to play.

The report points out that out of 85 communal incidents, 11 were incidents of moral policing. Hindu outfits were accused of causing these incidents. Three others were reportedly caused by activists of Muslim organizations while one other was caused by others. Two incidents allegedly belonged to efforts of religious conversions, seven to people who were against illegal cattle thefts, while 26 related to speeches harboring hatred, six of them were attack on or desecration of places of worship, while 29 other communal incidents also happened.

Over the years, the number of communal incidents has gone up from 73 in 2010 to 125 in 2017. Moral policing incidents declined from 48 in 2015 to 22 in 2017 and 15 in 2018.