CM’s son involved in brawl at Bangalore hotel

Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’scollege-going son Nikhil Gowda is suspected to be involved in brawl at prominent hotel in Bangalore inthe early hours of Thursday.

Though a police complaint has been registered againstthree unidentified miscreants for the early morning attack on Empire Hotel situated on Church Street inBangalore, the hotel staff told reporters that theChief Minister’s son was among the hooligans, who not only ransacked the hotel, but also beat up the staff.

The incident has taken a political turn with activists of Opposition Congress joining the hotel staff in a demonstration seeking an impartial inquiry into the attack, without sparing anybody, however influential and well connected they may be.

The hotel staff claimed that the Chief Minister’s sonwas among the attackers, who arrived at the hotel inthe wee hours of Thursday and demanded that food beserved to them. The group of youths, who had come in a black car, became agitated when they were told that the restaurant was closed and the cooks were asleep.They assaulted a few staff members, smashed thewindowpanes and broke the cutlery.

A staff member of the hotel told television channels that they would be able to identify the accused if produced before them. They also claimed that they were in possession of video recording of the attack captured on the security camera installed in the hotel.

Meanwhile, the brawl at the hotel took a new twistwith the Chief Minister’s son Nikhil Gowda lodging a counter-complaint at Cubbon Park police station, claiming that the staff of the Empire Hotel had beaten him up.

Joint Commissioner of Bangalore City Police BipinGopalkrishna told reporters that Nikhil has complainedto the police that the hotel staff had beaten him up following an altercation over their refusal to serve food to him and two of his friends. “Both thecomplaints are being investigated”, Gopalakrishna added.

Before proceeding to the police station, the Chief Minister’s son and his friends had taken treatment at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital in Bangalore as outpatients. Hospital’s superintendent Rajiv Shetty told reporters that the injuries were “minor” in nature. “The three of them came with a history ofassault”, he added.

Empire Hotel is a leading chain of hotels spread across Bangalore with more than ten branches.

The brawl at the hotel involving Nikhil Gowda is the latest in the series of family-related controversies haunting Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. Earlier, a BJP MLC had accused Chief Minister of accepting a bribe of Rs 1.5 billion from the illegal mine ownersin Bellary district. Former Minister D K Shivakumar produced documents to show that the Chief Minister’s family had purchased an IT park in Bangalore worth millions of rupees.