How Fair Is Karnataka Police to Its Minorities?
August 23, 2025
By Mariya Rajan and Jyoti Jangra
How two Muslim minority women sisters faced unfair treatment by Karnataka Police. Behind Bengaluru's giant tech offices lies a darker truth of the crimes against minorities of the state. The two Muslim women, both single mothers, now fight for survival every day. What began as a dispute with their landlady turned into a cascade of abuse, threats, and systemic neglect. Their journey — from reporting chemical attacks and violent assaults to being ignored by the very institutions sworn to protect them — reveals not just personal trauma, but a persistent crisis: the failure of India’s democracy to safeguard its minorities.
Their case is not an exception but a pattern. Karnataka’s conviction rate under the IPC in 2022 stood at 23.9%, well below the national average. Between 2020 and 2023, the state dropped 385 criminal prosecutions, including 182 tied to hate speech, cow vigilantism, and communal violence. In Dakshina Kannada alone, 84 communal incidents were documented in 2023 — with accountability remaining rare. Data from the Status of Policing in India Report (2018) shows why minorities often fear seeking help: 64% of Muslims reported moderate-to-high fear of the police.
Despite multiple assaults, chemical attacks, an attempted rape, and relentless cruelty from their landlady and her men, the two women were met not with protection, but with apathy and discrimination from the local police.
What followed was not protection, but silence. The local police refused to register an FIR until the sisters produced hospital records and went directly to the Deputy Commissioner of Police. Even then, action stalled. Eventually, civil society groups stepped in. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) supported the sisters, helping them file petitions with police officials, state commissions, and legal bodies.
Their story asks a difficult question: in a democracy that promises equal justice, why are minorities still forced to beg for protection?