Shirva: Protest Demanding Road Repair Turns Violent

By Snehalatha, Udupi
Bellevision Media Network

Shirva (Udupi): 02 June 2012: At times common people run out of patience and resort to sever action due to injustice and neglect of the local body to fix long pending problems even after repeated pleas and appeals.  Same situation aroused and people had to show the strength and unity to confront of these problems in Shirva.   Due to severe negligence by local Gram Panchayat the much awaited repair of Pilar-Mudarangadi Road is neglected and the road condition is so bad it is impossible to run any vehicles and transportation on this very crucial road.  In the back drop of this situation on Friday when hundreds of agitated local people attacked the Gram Panchayat Office the police arrested them.

 

Even after so many agitations, strikes, appeals, pleas to the local body has been fallen into the deaf ears, the protesting people demanded immediate resignation of President and members of the Gram Panchayat on Friday and began the agitation.  After that they even went to lock the Panchayat office.  In this situation the local police immediately called and requested the Panchayat Development Officer Sri Vasant Salian to come to the spot and he too tried to discuss and cool down the situation but did not yield any results and people continued their agitation.

 

 

In this situation, the argument and scuffle took place between the Officer and people.  As the situation going out of control, the Shirva police immediately got in touch with Padubidri and Kaup Central Reserve Police and called them to the spot to defuse the situation.  Even then people did not listen and continued their protest and all the efforts wre failed.  Since the Gram Panchayat were unable to solve this long pending road repair problem and as there is no immediate solution to the problem, when people themselves tried to lock the office, the police arrested 65 people and took them to the Shirva Police Station.

 

At this, people became more aggravated and walked to the Shirva Police station from Pilar and again agitated in front of the Police Station and demanded that the arrested be set free immediately.  Finally the police had to succumb to their demand and released the protesters and with that the protest came to an end.