Safety in India’s Silicon Valley: When 2 motorcycle-borne men bully an IAS officer in the heart of Bengaluru

Munish Moudgil

THIS incident questions the safety of the citizens living in Bengaluru, dubbed as India’s Silicon Valley. The story is about Munish Moudgil, a 1998 batch Karnataka cadre IAS, who was allegedly bullied and assaulted by two motorcycle-borne men when the officer went out for jogging at night last week. Moudgil’s wife, D Roopa, is incidentally an IPS officer working as Bengaluru’s joint commissioner of police. It was past 11 pm on October 14, when Moudgil went out for…
jogging. It was the officer’s habit to go for a late night run. On that day, after jogging for sometime, Moudgil was stopped by two motorcycle-borne men. The motorcycle first slowed down, and the pillion rider used filthy language and allegedly asked the officer not to run so late, and instead go home, according to local media reports. After an altercation, the men allegedly assaulted the officer and bullied him. They chased the officer till he reached his home. By the way, the incident did not take place somewhere at the outskirts of Bengaluru, but right in the city’s South division.
As his wife Roopa told BangaloreMirror, the pillion rider got down, grabbed her husband's hands and threw a punch at his face. “My husband ducked to miss the punch, but the rider also got down and the two miscreants began pushing and shoving him around. He managed to wriggle free and run, but they gave him a chase,” she narrated.
Both men in the bike were of around 5'10" tall and of a dark complexion. The officer managed to note down the number of the bike -- KA-01-7787, and the police swung into action only after the officer called the number -100.
The question remains, how safe the city of Bengaluru is. If this happens to an IAS officer (whose wife is also an IPS), what will happen to ordinary citizens in the city? Is the city safe for foreigners who need to come there for the software connect?
Moudgil is presently commissioner, survey settlement and land records, Benguluru. An M.Tech in electrical engineering from IIT-Bombay, he originally hails from Punjab. Son of a revenue service officer Moudgil got the 8th rank in the civil service exam.
Earlier, he was deputy commissioner in districts such as Bidar, Karwar and Belgaum. He also served as managing director of Gulbarga Electricity Supply Co Ltd (GESCOM).
The officer changed his cadre from Odisha to Karnataka only in 2005.
According to a Times of India article published earlier, his IPS wife Roopa claimed that she cannot live in any part of the world other than Karnataka. And that’s why Moudgil shifted his cadre to Karnataka rather than she applying for a cadre change to Odisha.