Bantwal: Negligence at Taluk Office - Dalits Stage Dharna

Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Mar 13: The taluk office, which has of late been hitting the headlines for wrong reasons, faced another difficult day on Monday March 12. Enraged over the fact that several files relating to Dalits had gone missing from the taluk office here, various Dalit organizations led a day-long dharna in front of the taluk office on Monday.

It may be recalled that the tahildar here had been trapped red-handed by the Lokayukta recently. That incident came as a last straw on the patience of the people, who have numerous complaints about the poor functioning of the taluk office since long.

Hundreds of Dalits, responding to the call given by their leaders, squatted in and out of the administration and audit block of the taluk office the whole day, and condemned the lackadaisical attitude of the taluk office staff, terming them as anti-Dalit.

The organizations concerned had complained to the Lokayukta and deputy commissioner of the district, alleging that the taluk office here has been dithering from disposing off pending files for sanction of house sites, land etc, moved by Dalits since the last three years. The organizations said that the officials have also kept the applicants in the dark about the fate of their applications, by providing them with vague answers when queried.

Reportedly, several Dalits who visited the taluk office again on Monday relating to their long-pending applications, suffered harassment again, as the officials did not provide them the current status of their applications. Frustrated and angered by this attitude, they sat in dharna, and vowed not to move out of the office till the information sought was provided.

Efforts of the circle police inspector, Anil S Kulkarni, to appease the protestors did not yield any result. The Dalits, who stood by their determination to stay put at the venue of the dharna till either the deputy commissioner or assistant commissioner comes there and provides them information about their missing files, continued with their protest.

In the evening, under pressure from protestors, assistant commissioner of Mangalore subdivision, Venkatesh, visited the office and held dialogue with the protestors. After he promised to provide full information on all the missing files within the next three days, the protestors suspended their protest.

Honorary president of Dakshina Kannada district Dalit Seva Samiti, Bhanuchandra Krishnapur, president, B K Sesappa Bedrakadu, and Bantwal Taluk Bharata Ratna Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Samaja Seva Sangh president, Chandrashekhar Veerakambha, led the protestors.

Policemen from town and rural police stations, led by their station house officers, Vinayaka Billawa and Shekhar, supervised law and order situation.