BENGALURU: Actor Harshika Poonacha’s husband Bhuvan Ponnanna was assaulted by unidentified men at the parking lot of Karama restaurant on Mosque Road in Pulakeshinagar recently.
On Friday, Harshika posted about the incident on her Instagram handle that took place a couple of days ago. The incident took when the couple had gone for dinner with some family members. Two-to-three people started a ruckus over parking when Harshika’s husband was taking their car from the valet parking, but the issue escalated. The men started assaulting Bhuvan for trivial reasons and used abusive language at him in front of the family. Meanwhile, other people also started gathering and the assailants attempted to snatch the gold chain from Bhuvan’s neck, Harshika explained.
The mob was saying that these Kannada people are should be taught a lesson, and one of them even tried to hit Bhuvan in the face.
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Most of them spoke either Hindi, Urdu, and a few spoke in broken Kannada. Harshika made an emergency call to the police inspector, following which the men fled the scene. Ahe narrated the incident to a patrol police officer nearby, but he only spoke about jurisdiction and which police station they should approach, she said.
How SAFE are we locals in Namma Bengaluru ????
Dear all, after a lot of thought ive 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 pic.twitter.com/kiF7z7C0yV— Harshika Poonacha (@actressharshika) April 19, 2024
Harshika said she was in shock after the incident. “This was the first such experience I have ever had in the city”, she noted. She also said that after the incident, a few questions that popped in her mind — “Are we living in Pakistan or Afghanistan? Is it wrong to use my language, Kannada, and get abused for it in my own city? How really safe are we in our own city? Being born and brought up here in Namma Bengaluru, should we turn a blind eye to such incidents that lead to such long term mental trauma?”, she noted.
Harshika requested Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the police to look into the matter and take appropriate action against the goons. She said she shared her experience on social media after talking to her friends, family and some acquaintances in the police department in the hope that her experience might help others.
Speaking exclusively to Public TV, Harshika said, “We had been to Karama restaurant for dinner in Pulakeshinagar. The valet brought our vehicle and Bhuvan got into it. Even before he could move it, somebody said ‘Dekh ke jao’. Bhuvan said he hadn’t even moved the vehicle and asked the person to move a bit so that he could take out the vehicle. Then some 2-3 people suddenly started saying, “Yeh Kannad ke log aajate hai…” etc. One of them tried to tug at Bhuvan’s gold chain. When others started gathering, one by one, they slunk away. They were even trying to put their hands in our car and take away whatever they could lay their hands on. Since they were other women with us, we didn’t go to the police station. I couldn’t get over the shock, though the incident occurred on April 2 and hence, I voiced it out”.