Man resorts to sit-in protest over ‘careless’ digging of roads

NT Correspondent

Belagavi: Frequent road digging by various authorities, citing different reasons, followed by public protests criticising damaged roads is a common occurrence in Bengaluru. However on Monday, motorists and residents of Hanumanth Nagar witnessed something unusual.

A 50-year-old man, Anil Kumar, staged a silent protest by sitting in a twofoot-deep pit on 4th Cross, Hanumantha Nagar for nearly 10 hours demanding that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike initiate necessary action against a private firm that had dug up the road for laying optical fibre cables (OFCs). Speaking to the media, Kumar said, "I'm staging a silent Satyagraha to seek justice.

Our area was beautiful with clean air before all this digging work started a few years back. Since then digging up of the road by workers and then asphalting it by agencies after our protest has become a norm here," he said. He said that the road was asphalted recently, but a few workers had again left a pit open after digging and laying some cables.

"No one cares for the plight of the common man," he said. He also said that during his silent protest from 9 am to 7 pm, his neighbours and fellow residents supported him and bought food for him. Later in the day, a few officials of the BBMP visited the spot. After a verification, it was found that a leading network service provider, Jio, had dug up the road for laying cables.