‘Surrounded and Stoned by a Violent Mob’

Open Assistant Editor KK Shahina was attacked in Karnataka by rightwing elements

In November 2010, when I was with Tehelka, I did a story on how witnesses in the 2008 Bangalore blasts case had given false evidence to implicate Abdul Nasar Madani, chairman of the People’s Democratic Party in Kerala. Police records claimed that in 2007, Madani was at Lakkeri estate in Kodagu with Naseer, a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative, to plot the blasts. Three witnesses testified that they had seen Madani there on the day. I went to Kodagu and interviewed two of them—KK Yogananda and Rafeeq Bappetty. They told me that they had not seen Madani at all. Yogananda, who said he used to be an RSS activist, did not even know that he had been listed as a witness in Madani’s case. He was under the impression that he was a witness for Naseer’s involvement. Rafeeq said he had been tortured by the police and forced to give false testimony. The article appeared in Tehelka on 25 November 2010.

The police dropped me on the road 5 km away from the spot. My lawyer, who was following us, took me in his car from there on. Later he informed me that the mob belonged to the Hindu Jagran Vedike, a rightwing outfit.