Karnataka frowns at tit-for-tat for Kasaragod district administration in closing road

MANGALURU: A move by Kerala police to seal off a 150-metre stretch of major district road at Salethur in Bantwal taluk has cut off residents in Malar, Aithakumeru and Bolmar in Salethur gram panchayat from rest of Karnataka.
Bordering Kerala, the gram panchayat forms part of Kolnad zilla panchayat constituency and above areas fall under Bantwal and Mangaluru assembly constituencies that MLAs U Rajesh Naik and U T Khader represent.
Venting his ire at the helplessness of residents of these areas in accessing basic amenities such as fair price shops, drug stores, gram panchayat or even village accountant’s office due to this move by Kasaragod district magistrate, M S Mohammad, ZP member said it is imperative that DK district administration take up this issue with Kasaragod district administration forthwith.
“This is an apparent tit-for-tat on part of the district administration there,” he added.
Mohammad who flagged this issue at the special meeting of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat on Friday hinted at a similar move by DK district administration which had sealed its borders with Kasaragod when Covid-19 cases were raging in that district. This road was closed even then, but state police that manned the road than allowed people in the above areas to traverse to Salethur after verifying their documents, which Kerala police is not doing, he rued.
Both Rajesh Naik and Khader exhorted Kota Shrinivas Poojari, district minister who chaired the meeting to intervene and help residents of the above areas.
Poojari, in turn, directed Sindhu B Rupesh, deputy commissioner to take up the matter with her Kasaragod counterpart S Sajith Babu and resolve the issue.
Manjula Madhava Mave, Zilla panchayat member too expressed concern at this development and batted for the cause of residents of these areas.