‘Karachi’ back on Bengaluru bakery’s board; nine held

BENGALURU: The Karachi Bakery outlet in Indiranagar got its name back, two days after it was attacked by miscreants, who’d threatened the workers for having named the bakery after the Pakistani capital.
The bakery on Sunday removed the covers it had used to mask the “Karachi” part of the name in the face of the threat.
The move came hours after police arrested nine persons who had threatened to vandalise the bakery if the name wasn’t changed.The incident came over a week after the Pulwama terror attack in Kashmir in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.
Bakery in-charge manager Sukumar said police have provided security and citizens extended a lot of support to them on social media. Police have provided security to five Karachi Bakery outlets in the city.
Karachi Bakery took to Twitter and said it was founded by Khanchand Ramnani, who had migrated to India during the partition. “The brand, established in 1953, is an Indian company based out of Hyderabad in Telangana. The popularity and love for its products has contributed to its growth across India and abroad. The essence of Karachi bakery is absolutely Indian by heart and will remain so. We request everybody to refrain from any kind of misconceptions,” it said.
The arrested miscreants were identified as Babaji, Srihari, Praveen, Sreeyappa, Shivakumar, Gunashekar, Lakshman, Sanjay and Naveen. Aged between 30-35 years, they are from Ulsoor. The arrests were made based on CCTV footage from the bakery.
Police sources said some of the accused, active in pro-Hindutva outfits, were the ones who decided to barge into the bakery to change the name.
Police said the accused claimed they hadn’t done anything wrong and described their actions as ‘patriotic’. They have been booked under IPC sections 146 (rioting) and 504 (breach of peace).
The bakery garnered huge support on social media. Arshdeep tweeted, “I visit Karachi bakery often ... Seeing this outside their shop broke my heart...”
The Bengaluru incident was reported by Pakistan media too. Pakistan Daily carried a headline, “Mob forces ‘Karachi Bakery’ in India to cover up ‘Karachi’ on signboard.”