After an outrage against language imposition across the country, an incident surfaced in which a girl child from Karnataka's Bengaluru was rescued from the hands of kidnappers. No, the child was not saved by people but her mother tongue Kannada sure did come to her rescue.
Initial reports revealed that the girl was trapped by a couple on the pretext of getting her ice cream on September 18, and taken was being taken to Thiruvananthapuram. Here's how the Kanyakumari district police found out the identity of the girl at Kaliyakkavilai bus stand in Tamil Nadu and successfully handed the two-year-old to her parents
How Kannada saved the life of a kidnapped girl?
According to initial reports, Lokitha, a two-year-old girl was abducted by a couple from Bengaluru's Majestic bus stand and was being taken to Thiruvananthapuram. The kidnappers set a trap by offering her ice cream on September 18.
As per the police officials, a man was spotted at the Kaliyakkavilai bus stand with two children, a boy and a girl, when the night duty police officers noticed the girl crying.
On interrogating the man, Joseph John, it was found that the girl was abducted and the boy was claimed to be the son of John's second wife. John told the police that he found the girl seeking alms in Majestic bus stand which is why he took pity on her and took her with him.
The boy spoke in Tamil while the girl spoke only in Kannada and the Tamil Nadu Police suspected something fishy. Simultaneously, a video was released by the girl's mother on social media in which she said that her two-year-old daughter has gone missing from Majestic bus stand while they were on their way back from a temple.
The police then updated the Karnataka police team about the girl child and the child and the boy were rescued and handed over to Karnataka police. The kidnappers have also been taken in as the Police suspect they could be part of a child trafficking network.
The language imposition debate
The Incident sparked discussion about how Kannada, the mother tongue, saved the girl in a different state. They further drew parallels to how Hindi imposition would be a bad idea where every state had a different mother tongue.
Earlier in September, Political parties and pro-Kannada activists in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu protested against Hindi imposition on other states.
