Pro-Kannada activists protest near Tamil Nadu border

On Saturday, KJV and other pro-Kannada organisations staged a bandh in response to the Tamil Nadu farmers protest on March 28 demanding the Union government’s intervention to stop the proposed dam across the river Cauvery at Mekedatu on the Karnataka side.

Both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have made elaborate security arrangements on the state border for the Saturday bandh. Over 100 Krishnagiri policemen were deployed on the state border. “Hundred policemen are deployed on the state border as a preventive measure to avoid untoward incidents due to the bandh,” Rohini Priyadarshini, assistant superintendent of police for Hosur police division, told DC.

She added, “Bus and other transport services between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu was stopped from the early hours of Saturday based on information received from our Karnataka counterparts.” Tension prevailed on the state border after a rally of the pro-Kannada organisations reached the state border from Attibelle, bordering Hosur of Krishnagiri district, on the Karnataka side, because a few KJV cadres tried to cross the border. They were stopped by the police. Irked by this, they burnt tyres on the Chennai-Bengaluru national highway. According to sources, tyre-burning incidents were witnessed at many places in rural Bengaluru, including Attibelle.

Manjunath Deva said, “Tamil Nadu should stop politicising the issue because the proposed dam is constructed for a drinking water scheme like the Hogenakkal drinking water project implemented in Tamil Nadu.” He said, “Karnataka, with the promise to share 192 tmcft of Cauvery water with Tamil Nadu, will go ahead with its work for constructing the dam. No sakthi (power) can stop the work.”