BELGAUM: Even as Sri Ram Sene (SRS) activists have insisted that the Hubli-Dharwad police acts on its complaint against Goa-based tiatr director Tousif de Navelim, the Bishop of Belgaum has denied allegations that posters of Tousif’s tiatr had been displayed at Catholic churches in Hubli and Dharwad.
While SRS supremo Pramod Mutalik and his supporters want to take the entire tiatr team to task after filing the police complaint, senior police officials from the Hubli-Dharwad commissionrate feigned ignorance of SRS’s police complaint and its status.
While Police Commissioner Ravindra Prasad expressed ignorance about the complaint, DCP (Crime) Ghori, who was said to have received the complaint on behalf of the commissioner, was clueless regarding the same.
“Yes, our office did receive the complaint on Saturday and the same was forwarded to the office of the commissioner. But I need to see where it has reached,” DCP Ghori told Herald.
When contacted, the complainant, Raghavendra S Katare, was rather annoyed by the indifferent attitude of the police. “We will meet the police commissioner and insist on action against the complaint lodged by me,” said Katare.
Meanwhile, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Belgaum Peter Machado has denied charges by the SRS regarding the display of tiatr posters in any of the Catholic churches in Hubli and Dharwad.
“We are not aware about what is happening in Goa. However, no such poster was displayed in any of our Catholic churches in Hubli-Dharwad. It is unfortunate that Mutalik and his followers are engaged in maligning the image of Christian churches by levelling baseless charges,” Bishop Machado told Herald.
When contacted, Mutalik’s lawyer Manoj Hangal said that charges were made based on information provided by certain activists.
It may be recalled that the SRS’s police complaint had dragged the church into the controversy, by linking it to Tousif’s tiatr and even went to the extent of placing the church alongside drug mafias and liquor mafias.
“There is a plan to begin its (SRS) functioning in Goa and the Christian missionaries, drug mafias, liquor mafias are intentionally trying to stop it from happening…in this direction they are intentionally staging a drama about Pramod Muthalik, ‘Akantvadi Goeant Nakat’ (Don’t want terrorist in Goa).”
“We have come to know this type of posters in some churches in Hubli,” stated the police complaint.
