Spot report by Viju, Mangalore for Daijiworld News Network - Pics Dayanand Kukkaje - Wednesday, 5-45 pm

Mangalore, Jan 11: The long wait of eight years for a railway overpass on Padil-Bajal road by the over 30,000 residents and road-users crossed the boundaries of patience and took the shape of a huge protest on Wednesday at Kankanady railway station.

The enraged agitators who were angered by their repeated representations to authorities not yielding any results, under the Setuve Horata Samiti gathered over 2000 people and led a protest rally from the railway gate at Padil to the Kankanady railway station.

Once at the station, the  local leaders including B M Madhav, president of the Samiti, secretary Suresh Bajal, Ahmed Bava Karmar, Dr Annaiah Kulal, Monappa Bhandary, U T Khader spoke on the issue.

A bad day for the officials of the local administration, Mangalore City Corporation commissioner Chandappa had to face the vent of the angered crowd who refused to listen to any assurances. One by one the people from the seated crowd shot back, “We are sick of your assurances, no more of them please”.  The environment was charged when the commissioner gave assurance to “look into the matter” and the flustered crowd shouted slogans and rushed towards the commissioner.

However police intervention calmed them down. This also had its impact on the next speaker MCC Mayor Ashraf. The shaking mayor promised to give Rs 1 crore from the city corporation and also gave his word to collect funds from MPs and MLAs funds for the under bridge. He set a dead line for himself of 30 days to begin the work.  This did not satisfy the protestors who have been mislead by these assurances over the years.

The protest, which ended after three hours, had a grand finale with the gherao of the local corporators.
 
The crowd enveloped the local corporators Sesamma, Appi and Sureka Rai and shouted slogans demanding construction of an overpass. After over 30 minutes of intense struggle the corporators were released by the cops and finally whisked away from the venue in an auto rickshaw.

Several local leaders from the agitating crowd told Daijiworld that violent action would be taken if the work for the overpass does not begin within a month’s time. Tight police bandobast was also arranged in view of the protest and no untoward incident was reported.

This episode of people’s verdict and power openly confronting with the local administration indeed shook it.  A good lesson to the administration today - never neglect people's welfare!