BENGALURU: A 37-year-old massage therapist from Tripura was arrested for abusing Kannadigas and the Karnataka state when a delivery boy contacted him to deliver a parcel on Thursday morning. The arrested individual has been identified as Mithun Sarkar, a resident of Begur Main Road in Hongasandra and a native of Tripura. Sarkar has been working as a massage therapist in a salon and spa and also provides home service for the last nine years.According to Ranjith, 29, a resident of Begur, he works as a delivery boy for a logistics firm. On Thursday, he collected parcels from the logistics office and called a few customers whose addresses were not properly mentioned on the parcels. One of the customers Ranjith called was Sarkar.Speaking to TOI, Ranjith said, “As Sarkar received my call around 9.30 pm, I introduced myself to him and asked him to share the exact location of his house where the parcel was to be delivered. He replied to me in Hindi and started scolding me for speaking in Kannada. I spoke to him in Hindi and politely asked him to stop abusing me. But he continued to make abusive remarks about Kannadigas and Karnataka. He said, ‘If 70 percent of Hindi people leave Karnataka, you will not have Rs 10 to buy tomatoes. When I asked him what else, he said, ‘They will get angry easily. Do you know Raghavan in the building? Ask him. We are not like him. We are Bengali people, brother. The way we eat, you people, Kannada wala, cannot even imagine. What do you people eat? Ragi mudda, sambar, idli, dosa, bas. Weekly once you will eat chicken with ragi. You people are so natonki, Kannada is superstar?. If 70 percent Hindi people leave, do you know what is tomato? You will not have Rs 10 money with you people.‘”He further asked me to record his call and take his tower location. “I want my item,” he said. When I asked him for his address, he just said, “Bommanahalli, Begur.” He asked me if I am Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, or Kerala and continued to abuse filthily, Ranjith said. “I called him four times, and all four times he was abusive. I shared the conversation with pro-Kannada organisation members, and with their help, I lodged a complaint with the police,” he added.Sarkar has hurt the sentiments of Kannadigas and is creating enmity and hatred between Kannada and other speakers. Hence, he requested the police to take action against Sarkar. A senior officer said the FIR has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony) and 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).Sarkar was arrested, and he will be produced before the court by evening. During interrogation, it was found that Sarkar can speak fluent Kannada, but he chose to speak only Hindi with the complainant. He claims that he was angry with his employer as he was not paid his salary, and when he received a call from the complainant, he expressed his anger on him. He further claims that he was drunk in the morning itself. Sarkar booked a t-shirt for himself from an e-commerce platform.
