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Bangalore, Aug. 30: The police officer whose appointment had helped stem the threat-triggered exodus of people from the Northeast has got a death threat himself. On the same mobile phone number where people who had been threatened or attacked could register complaints.
V.S. D’Souza, deputy commissioner of police (intelligence) who was recently appointed to handle every case of threat or attack faced by citizens from the Northeast, has filed a complaint following the threat that came in the form of an SMS.
Police sources confirmed today that the officer had received a message on the number 09480801020 that said: “D’Souza, tu baahar aaja. Tere ko nahin chodoonga. Tumhe kutte ka mout mar daloonga.”
Translated, that would read: “D’Souza, you come out. You will not be spared. You will be killed like a dog.”
The officer promptly informed his colleagues and registered a complaint with Cubbon Park police station.
“We have traced the message to Bijapur (north Karnataka) and we already have some suspects in sight,” said an officer involved with the probe.
Bangalore police have arrested more than 15 youths for attacking or threatening people from the Northeast since the Assam riots broke out last month. The incidents, coupled with threatening text messages, led to an exodus of more than 30,000 people from the Karnataka capital.
Many also fled from other cities.
D’Souza’s appointment as the nodal officer to handle such cases of threat or attacks on people from the Northeast had helped calm those who preferred to stay back in Bangalore even as many used the dedicated mobile phone number to register complaints.
Authorities had publicised the number through both the print and the electronic media.
Regarded as a tough officer, D’Souza had worked on several terror cases that led to the arrest of six militants of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba for the 2005 attack at the Indian Institute of Science.
Operations led by him had unearthed a large cache of weapons stored by members of terror modules active in the state soon after the IISc attack.
The Lashkar militants arrested by him are now serving life terms in Bijapur jail. Police sources said they were also probing if there was any link between the convicts or their sympathisers with the message D’Souza received.
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