Kannada actor Harshika Poonacha, husband harassed by mob, attacked in Bengaluru

Kannada actor Harshika Poonacha was allegedly harassed by a mob and her husband was attacked during a recent outing to a restaurant in Pulikeshi Nagar in eastern Bengaluru. The incident occurred on the evening of April 2 but came to light after Poonacha narrated it on Friday morning through a post on X (formerly Twitter).

A little after 7:41 pm, Poonacha, her husband Bhuvann Ponnanna, and two other female family members, exited the Karama Restaurant in Pulikeshi Nagar. The actor told DH that soon after they entered the car brought by a valet, a man came out of nowhere.

“He said “Dekh ke jao” (watch where you are going),” Poonacha said. “Ponnanna replied to him in Kannada that we were leaving and asked the person to move aside. The person then said, “Yeh Kannada ke log bahut zyada baat karten hain” (these Kannada people talk a lot). My husband asked him what's his problem was if he speaks Kannada.”

Soon after, a mob gathered and some unknown people allegedly held Ponnanna’s collar and his hands. The actor said most of them spoke in Urdu, Hindi and some broken Kannada.

“I was shook,” Poonacha said. “Ponnanna is extremely short-tempered but that day he remained calm and didn’t get out of the car as there were women with him. Ponnanna felt something in his neck and it was his chain, which was broken. A person was trying to remove it slowly during the commotion.”

Poonacha said that she called a police inspector she knew on speakerphone and the mob dispersed. “Some others came to our aid and consoled us. We went a bit ahead and near the mosque, there was a patrolling vehicle. When we spoke to the ASI and told him, he asked us to go to the nearest police station and lodge a complaint. He didn’t even come with us to see what happened. This didn’t push us to file a complaint and since three of us were women, Ponnanna didn’t want to take us to the police station.”

The next day, the actor said, her husband was hurt and there were scratch marks on his neck and his arms. The actor said that they would file the police complaint on Saturday and were in touch with senior officers.