A case was filed on Tuesday against a local Congress leader in Bengaluru after a video showed him sprinkling petrol inside a ward office of the city’s municipal body and threatening to set it on fire, ANI reported. The Karnataka Congress suspended the leader, Narayanaswamy, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he must be arrested “if he has committed a crime”, according to The News Minute.
Narayanaswamy is said to be a close associate of KR Puram MLA Byrathi Basavaraj. In the video, he is seen threatening to set the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s ward office in Horamavu on fire, in the presence of officials. He is also seen throwing petrol at Assistant Revenue Officer Chengal Rayappa, demanding that one of his associates bring him the papers that needed to be signed.
The incident took place on February 16. Rayappa had reportedly refused to sign a fake land document as Narayanaswamy had allegedly demanded it.
The officer was transferred the day after the incident and was threatened against filing a police complaint, a BBMP official told The News Minute.
Narayanaswamy said he had not done anything wrong. “I have been running from pillar to post to get one document signed and the BBMP officials have been dodging me,” he said. “I was really angry and, in a fit of rage, I may have done what I did. But I did not actually want set fire to the office.”
The video comes just three days after Bengaluru District Youth Congress General Secretary Mohammed Haris Nalapad allegedly assaulted a man at a restaurant and was suspended from the party for six years. Nalapad is a Congress MLA’s son.
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