Allows weapon training but bans hijab in schools: Govt's silence over Bajrang Dal camp questioned

Kodagu: The right-wing Bajrang Dal is reported to have held a week-long camp at Sai Shankar Educational Institute in Karnataka's Kodagu where the participants have reportedly been given arms training.

About 116 Bajrang Dal workers from different parts of the state participated in the camp, which was held between May 5 and 11. According to The News Minute, all the participants were given the training to use different weapons, including air guns and Trishuls

The photos and images of the camp released by the organisers endorse the arms training on the school campus.

While the Karnataka police claimed they are investigating the reports of arms training during the camp, the opposition parties and human rights activists questioned the police permission for the camp.

The organisers claimed that the camp was a part of its annual programme carried out every year. It is aimed at spreading awareness of culture, history and self-defence, they added.

The News Minute quoted Puneeth Attavar, a Bajrang Dal convenor from Mangaluru, as saying that along with other sessions, the participants were given training on how to aim an air gun and trishuls had been distributed among them.

Organisation Popular Front of India (PFI), filed a police complaint about the training camp while Congress leaders Rizwan Arshad and Dinesh Gundu Rao were among those who voiced their opposition.

Filing a police complaint about the camp, the Popular Front of India (PFI) said that the Bajrang Dal wanted to create unrest in society, that is what the right-wing intends with the arms training.

Meanwhile, the school authorities said that though such camps have been held every year over the last ten years on the school premises, they had no clue about the weapon training.

While the government remains silent over the camp and weapon training on the school campus, a parent of a Muslim student, who was banned inside the classroom with a hijab, questioned the government's no action stand, terming it a double standard.

"The government wanted our girls to leave their religion outside the classroom, at the same time allowing the Hindu groups to make communal vitriol and get weapon training on the school campuses'" the mother of the student was quoted by the TNN.

The organisers claimed that they had discussed 'love jihad', conversions and cattle slaughter, and how to save Hindus from it during the camp.