She Refused Religious Conversion’: Hubballi Congress Councillor On Why Daughter Neha

Neha, a first-year Master of Computer Applications (MCA) student at KLE Technological University in Hubballi, was killed last week by 23-year-old Fayaz, a college dropout, for rejecting his advances. The daylight murder on the college campus has triggered a massive controversy.

“They were forcing her to convert. Since she didn’t agree to religious conversion, she was murdered,” Niranjan Hiremath, the Congress Councillor from Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC), said.

Earlier, too, Hiremath has alleged “love jihad” in his daughter’s killing, even though the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has said “personal reasons” led to the crime. Fayaz’s mother has said he was in depression and in love with Neha. In the face of intense criticism by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), deputy CM DK Shivakumar has defended the law and order situation in the state, accusing the BJP of trying “to create fear and panic”.

BJP national president JP Nadda paid a visit to Hiremath’s house on Sunday and said the state government should hand over the case to CBI if the state police were incapable of a fair probe.

“The people of Karnataka will not spare the current government for its appeasement politics….Hiremath, too, has demanded a CBI inquiry into the incident,” Nadda was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

But Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara said the incident was being politicised, hitting out at the BJP. “They are making statements against me and the Chief Minister. Action will be taken as per law whether a Hindu or a Muslim is involved. An accused is an accused. Police arrested him within an hour [of the crime],” he said.

On demands for a CBI probe, he said: “We have given many cases to CBI. If the accused had left country or was absconding, then we could have thought. But police have arrested him. Let’s see what comes up during the investigation.” Later in the day, CM Siddaramaiah said state CID will probe the murder.

As the debate raged, senior BJP leader Ashwath Narayan doubted the state’s ability to “carry out a fair probe”, wondering why the government was “sounding reluctant it hand it over” to the central agency. “The truth must come out…we want CBI investigation,” he said.