PIL on setting fire to dwellings at Sunday Bazaar slum

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday initiated suo motu PIL proceedings on the issue of setting afire to dwellings of migrant workers at Sunday Bazaar slum situated in Kacharakanahalli.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty passed the order based on a letter written by city-based advocate Vaishali Hegde.

It was pointed out in the letter that newspapers have reported that hundreds of migrant workers from Kalaburagi were living in these dwellings. Some anti-social elements had set fire to the dwellings during the last week of May 2020 when a majority of the workers had gone to their hometowns.

“The incident would be a shock to any law-abiding citizen of the country. It appears like a scene out of a movie where unlawful and rowdy elements take the law into their own hands and law enforcement agency remains a mute spectator since the loss had occurred only to the poor and voiceless migrant workers...,” Ms. Hegde wrote in the letter based on newspaper reports while requesting the court to issue directions to the authorities to protect the interests of these migrant workers.