Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday handed over cheques of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of six persons killed in communal violence since 2018, PTI reported.

The Congress leader gave the cheques to the families of Deepak Rao, Masood, Mohammed Fazil and Abdul Jalil from the Dakshina Kannada district, Idrish Pasha from the Mandya district and Shamir from the Gadag district.

Rao was hacked to death on January 3, 2018, during Siddaramaiah’s previous term as the chief ministers. The others were killed in 2022 and 2023 during the tenure of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

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The state government issued orders to give compensation to the six families on June 16, The News Minute reported.

The chief minister on Monday alleged that the BJP government discriminated between citizens while giving relief. He said that it gave compensation only to the families of BJP leader Praveen Nettaru (who was killed in July) and Harsha (who was killed in February 2022).

Siddaramaiah said that when he was the leader of Opposition, he had proposed in the state Assembly that compensation and jobs should also be given to families of Muslims killed in communal violence, but the BJP government did not agree to it.

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“After our government came to power, we are giving compensation of Rs 25 lakh each to the families and ‘successors’ of those six people who were killed,” he said, according to PTI. “We will give jobs to them because everyone should be looked at equally. The government should not discriminate against people.”

Siddaramaiah added that the government will also ensure that such cases are investigated and the guilty are punished.

The Congress leader said that the government will not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands.

“We will not give room for such unnatural deaths,” he said. “We will make every effort to see that there are no communal clashes in the state. Whoever they are, be it Hindus or Muslims, no one should die in communal clashes and no one should take law into their hands.”