Strengthen security in religious places, MLA Vedavyas Kamath urges Karnataka govt

Mangaluru: BJP MLA from Mangaluru City South D Vedavyasa Kamath has urged the state government to strengthen security measures at prominent religious sites in Karnataka.

With the recent arrest of a person named Arafath Ali by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), it has been revealed that the accused in the 2022 cooker bomb blast case Mohamed Shariq had targeted the Kadri Sri Manjunatha Temple here while carrying an IED which exploded in an auto rickshaw, Kamath said in a statement here on Sunday.

The NIA’s inquiry has revealed that Arafath Ali was the mastermind behind the plan to detonate the cooker bomb. The agency has also linked him to the two graffiti incidents in Mangaluru in 2020, Kamath said.

Congress leaders should understand the gravity of the issue instead of pursuing vote-bank politics, he said.