“We are representatives of local community residents who dutifully followed the law of getting police and BBMP permissions to gather for a protest against the Mantri SEZ and Coremind construction projects that are destroying large wetlands and catchment areas that feed the Bellandur lake. We got support from several hundred local citizenry who shared our concern and anxiety. At the same venue and same time we were faced by a bunch of 30 locals who protested against our protests. They had no police or BBMP permissions and were apparently there to disrupt our peaceful meet and were openly aggressive in their intent.
They operated under the guise of local farmers but visibly in favour of the projects. The local police were openly biased towards them and permitted them to encroach on 30 percent of our pandal space. This small group blocked traffic movement, kept heckling and tried to provoke us into a fight. Thankfully we resisted and after nearly an hour, the ACP arrived and forced them to leave pointing that they had no business to be there. This was much to the relief of over 800 peaceful protestors who had gathered by then from local RWAs. The protest ended without incident but starkly showed how vested interests backed by muscle and money power can undermine genuine well meaning efforts to correct wrongs that coninue to happen with police-politician-builder-hoodlum nexus”.
– Subramaniam Sankaran
Bellandur resident
‘Police-politician-builder-hoodlum nexus’
