Udupi: Having spent 19 months behind bars in Saudi Arabia for a blasphemous post made out by fraudsters in his name against the Saudi crown prince and Makkah, Harish Bangera from Udupi district is back home with the help of the Udupi police and Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje. Bangera, a resident of Koteshwar in Udupi district, who was arrested in December on charges of posting offensive comments about the crown prince and Makkah on Facebook, was released from a Saudi prison on August 17. On Wednesday, he returned to his homeland.
Bangera, who was working as an air conditioning technician in Saudi Arabia, had shared a post in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of the Indian government, which angered his employer. Afterward, he apologized for sharing the post through a video and deactivated the account. The two Muslim brothers from Dakshina Kannada district, apparently provoked by Bangera’s pro-CAA post, allegedly opened a fake Facebook account in his name and posted objectionable material against the holy land and the crown prince. He was arrested swiftly by the Saudi police.
According to Sumana, who filed a complaint with the CEN police station here, her husband was a victim of a conspiracy and explained that it was a fake account. Bangera was found to have no connection with the account after a police investigation. After it was discovered that they had created the fake account, The duo were arrested in October last year for creating the fake account.
Police in Udupi shared the information collected from Saudi Arabia, which led to his release. Throughout these months, a number of people including social activist Ravindranath Shanbhag, former minister K Jayaprakash Hegde, MLA Halady Srinivas Shetty and police officials worked to secure his release. As a result of the efforts of the Udupi police, and later the intervention of Union Minister of State for Agriculture Shobha Karandlaje, Bangera was freed from a Saudi prison on August 17.
As he arrived from Saudi Arabia at Bengaluru airport on Wednesday morning, his friends were there to welcome him. Vishnuvardhan, the Udupi district superintendent of police, expressed happiness over Bangera’s release and said the case against the two people who created the fake account is still pending.
Post Your Comments