Even as the district in-charge Minister R. Ramalinga Reddy and Mayor B.S. Sathyanarayana have said that residents living around Mandur landfills have consented to provide more time to Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to dump garbage there, the protests at Mandur intensified on Tuesday.
Late on Monday night, 21 protesters were detained by the police following which garbage from the city was dumped in the landfills there. They were let off after being produced before the Anekal tahsildar.
With the village residents refusing to withdraw their protest, 400 police personnel are deployed there to maintain law and order. Additional Superintendent of Police, Bangalore Rural District, Abdul Ahad, told The Hindu that they have imposed prohibitory orders (Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code) till midnight on June 6, within a radius of 5 km around the landfill.
Upset with the developments, hundreds of village residents gathered outside the landfills on Tuesday and staged a protest. The protesters, mostly women from Mandur and surrounding villages, raised slogans against the BBMP and the State government for failing to address their problems and instead compounding them (problems) by continuing to dump garbage. “Our leaders have not backed us. We have realised that we have to find solutions to our problems now. We will court arrest again, if necessary,” said a village resident.
Later in the day, the protesters found support in freedom fighter H.S. Doreswamy, who sat in a dharna along with them. He too condemned the BBMP for continuing to send garbage to Mandur. “The people here have been suffering silently for the past several years. It is high time the BBMP stops sending garbage to Mandur,” he remarked.
Somasundarapalya resists dumping of waste
Residents of Somasundarapalya in Mangammanapalya ward have also resisted BBMP attempts to dump wet waste at the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) there. According to sources, the residents have dug up the road leading to KCDC.
The sources said that garbage from K.R. Market, Madiwala Market and a few other markets is sent to KCDC for composting. Residents have been complaining about the stench and staging protests frequently. The residents met the Mayor, but the talks with him failed.
