Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Jan 10: The district Youth Congress on Wednesday January 10 urged lawyers not to represent the accused in the murder cases of Deepak Rao and Basheer.
Deepak Rao was hacked to death in Katipalla on January 3. Basheer was attacked the same night at Kottara Chowki in a act of retaliation. He passed away four days later. The police have arrested four accused in each of the two cases.
Addressing a press meet here, district Youth Congress president Mithun Rai said, "We appeal to the lawyer fraternity to not defend the killers of Deepak and Basheer in court. We will submit a memorandum in this regard to the district lawyers' association on Thursday January 11.
"We believe our lawyers have a lot of concern towards maintaining harmony in our district. Hence we feel that will not represent the killers.
"We will also submit a memorandum to the police commissioner to investigate and trace the actual persons involved in these murders. Police have done a very good job in arresting the culprits within hours of the crime. We appreciate their work. But it is essential that our district comes to know the real sponsors of these murders," Mithun Rai said.
Commenting on the viral photo of Ilyas, an alleged member of the Target group, with minister U T Khader, he said, "It is purely politically-motivated. It is common for people to click photographs witin ministers and MLAs. Ilyas was a candidate for Youth Congress president post who got defeated in our internal election. As per Youth Congress' system, the person who gets defeated in the election becomes the vice-president, and the winner the president.
Youths file nominations through online mode for our internal elections. Their nominations are approved only after scrutiny.
"In the case of Ilyas, at the time of scrutiny the allegations were not proved against him. After becoming the office-bearer he was not involved in any criminal activity. If the allegations are proved, we will sack him from Youth Congress immediately," he said.
"Naresh Shenoy who is an accused in the Vinayak Baliga murder case clicked a photo with Prime Minister Narendra Modi . The leader of Yuva Morcha of Mudigere who has been arrested in Dhanya case also clicked pictures with BJP MP Pratap Simha and and MLA C T Ravi. We can give thousands of pictures of right-wing criminals with BJP leaders and ministers," he pointed out.