Organisers of Rajata Sambrama booked for ‘defacing’ city

Mangaluru: Mangaluru City police on a complaint from Mangaluru City Corporation authorities have filed a case against organizers of a silver jubilee bash organized at Nehru Maidan on Saturday, to mark the completion of M N Rajendra Kumar’s 25 years in office as president of South Canara District Central Cooperative Bank. The event ‘Rajata Sambrama’ also marked the 20th anniversary celebration of Navodaya Self-Help groups promoted by the bank.
The organizers have been charged under sections 188, 283 and 290 of the Indian Penal Code and section 3 of Karnataka Open Place Disfigurement Act, a release from Hanumanthraya, DCP (law and order) said. The charges the organizers face include disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant, causing danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation and punishment for public nuisance in cases not otherwise provided for under IPC.

Hanumanthraya said in the complaint registered with Mangaluru South Police station, MCC officials charged the organisers with erecting illegal cutouts at junctions of main roads, on city thoroughfares and along road dividers, causing inconvenience to motorists and pedestrians alike. The cut-outs, especially those erected on the under construction clock tower drew the ire of netizens who vented the same in widely circulated clips on social media.

Incidentally, when the organisers in the run up to the event were asked about the large scale inconvenience that an event of this nature which drew crowds upwards of 1.5-lakh and more than 3,000 buses and other vehicles used to ferry the people would cause, had merely expressed their regret and urged people to forgive them. Netizens also came out strongly against the traffic chaos and the litter that the crowd attending the event left behind.