Bengaluru: In a despicable incident here, a woman was harshly beaten and dragged out of a temple in the Amrithalli area by a trustee of the temple. The accused allegedly assaulted the woman with racist slurs, and asked her to get out of the temple. When she resisted, he dragged her by her hair and threw her out. The assault was captured on CCTV cameras installed at the temple.
The victim, also a resident of the same area, has lodged a complaint at the Amrithalli police station against the accused. "I went to Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple in Amrithalli on December 21. A person named Munikrishnappa behaved rudely with me there. He asked me if I came to the temple without taking a bath or cleaning myself. 'You will not be allowed to visit here. You are black and strange,' he said. He then physically abused and assaulted me," the woman said in her complaint.
"After the attack, he dragged me out of the temple by my hair and beat me up. When the temple priests came to my aid, Munikrishnappa took an iron rod that was there and tried to hit me with it. He also threatened to kill me and my husband if I told anyone about this," the woman further mentioned in her complaint. She further said that she did not open up about this earlier because she was afraid for her and her husband's life.
"My husband knows about this. But I didn't tell anyone about this because I was afraid. After being reassured that the police would protect us, I came to the police station and lodged a complaint," she said. The CCTV footage procured by the police clearly shows the man mercilessly beating and manhandling her, while trying to get her out of the temple. He can also be seen trying to hit her with an iron rod, but a temple priest tries to stop him. The woman eventually leaves the temple.
In a counter-complaint lodged on Friday, the accused man has alleged that the woman 'had to be thrown out' because she was trying to forcefully enter the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. "She came to the temple and claimed that God has come over her. Venkateswara is my husband, I should sit next to Venkatesh in the sanctum sanctorum, she insisted. But the priests did not allow her to do so. When stopped, she got furious and spit on one of the priests. She was requested to leave several times after that with all politeness. When she did not listen, we were compelled to drag her out," Munikrishnappa said in his complaint.
The police are trying to investigate the matter from both perspectives and have so far been able to procure the footage capturing the assault of the woman complainant.
