'Are we living in Pakistan?': Actor Harshika, husband attacked in Bengaluru for speaking in Kannada

Kannada actress Harshika Poonacha on Friday (April 19) said she and her husband Bhuvann Ponnannaa were harassed, abused, and attacked recently in Bengaluru for speaking in the local language Kannada.

Harshika took to her social media accounts to share the horrifying experience with video, that happened in Frazer Town where they had gone for dinner. She questioned whether “we are living in Pakistan or Afghanistan” in a lengthy post along with the pictures of the attackers.

'Scares me to go out'

“I’ve been in absolute shock after this incident and it still scares me to go out in the city that I was born in and has given me everything in life. This is the first such experience I’ve ever had in my city,” she said.

In the post titled, “How SAFE are we locals in Namma Bengaluru???”, Harshika wrote, “Dear all, after a lot of thought I’ve decided to share a horrifying experience I had in Namma Bengaluru a couple of days ago. I initially thought I would let go of it after talking to my friends, family and certain acquaintances in the police department, but for the larger good of my fellow Bangaloreans I finally decided to post about it.”

What happened?

Sharing what happened on that night in Frazer Town, Harshika wrote, “I was on a casual dinner with family on a late evening in a restaurant called "Karama" in Mosque road, Pulikeshi Nagar near Frazer town couple of days ago. Post completing dinner we received our vehicle from valet parking and when we were about to move 2 men suddenly appeared near the driver seat window & started arguing that the vehicle is very big and if moved suddenly it could touch them.

“My husband ignored it by saying "innu move maadilwalla side bidi" (we haven’t moved at all right, please move aside now) because they were talking about probabilities and it did not make sense at all. He moved the vehicle ahead a little, by then these 2 men started abusing him and my family in their language saying these Kannada people should be taught a lesson and even tried to hit him on the face.

“My husband was really patient and did not react much & I was surprised because he normally is very short tempered. Within 2-3 minutes a crowd of 20-30 members of the same gang gathered and 2 of them grabbed my husband's gold chain and snatched it so hard that it came off and then they tried pulling it towards them in a very skilled manner. My husband realised this on time and quickly held on to it and gave it to me. By this time this entire team was so agitated that they could not get their hands on the gold chain and other valuables that they started damaging the vehicle & trying to physically abuse us by saying made up things like we scolded them, that did not even make sense to us or anybody around.”

'Police officer not keen to help'

The actor said the attackers told them to “stop talking in Kannada” as they were in their area. According to her, most of them spoke in Hindi, Urdu, and a few in “broken Kannada”.

She also said that a police officer who was nearby in a patrolling vehicle was not keen to help. “When I made an emergency call to the inspector I knew from my area they all dispersed in a fraction of a second like nothing had happened. We tried looking for them but they had disappeared into thin air in a matter of seconds. We found a patrol police vehicle nearby and narrated the incident to Mr. Umesh the ASI from the nearby police station, he did not seem keen to help us. He said we should talk to higher-ups in the department and did not even have the courtesy to come and find out what happened. He wanted to drink the Moosambi juice that he was drinking in front of a restaurant just 2 buildings ahead.”

She concluded the post by asking a few questions. “1. Are we living in PAKISTAN or AFGHANISTAN?? 2. Is it wrong to use my language Kannada & get abused for it in my own city??? 3. How really safe are we in our own city ? 4. Being born & brought up here in Namma Bengaluru should we turn a blind eye into such incidents which lead to such long term mental trauma? (sic).”

She also requested Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the state police to look into the matter and take appropriate action.