Kundapur: Assault on journalist - accused surrender in court
Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (SP)
Kundapur, Feb 5: Three persons accused of assaulting Sripathi Hegde Hakladi, a reporter with Vijayvani Kannada daily, surrendered in the court here on Monday February 4.
The accused are Adikekodlu Udaykumar Shetty, vice-president of Vandse gram panchayat, Totabail Santosh Kumar Shetty, former president of Hattiangady gram panchayat, and Surendra, an auto driver from Kutbeltoor.
The accused were accompanied by several Congress supporters such as Vandaballi Jayaram Shetty, Jayalaxmi, Tallur gram panchayat president, Chandravathi Hegde and several others when they came to the court.
All three were granted bail in the evening.
Sources said that the accused, at the time of assaulting Hakladi, boldly challenged him and claim that he could not touch them as they had the support of an MLA. However, later when they were brought to court, they grew anxious and did not eat anything till 6 pm until they got bail.
Uday Kumar Tallur from Bahujana Samaja Party in his statement said that Congress does not have any right to support such activities. "I am sure voters will definitely teach them a lesson in the upcoming election," he said.
"No one has the right to curb a journalist's freedom and I strongly condemn the incident," said Anantha Movadi, zilla panchayat member.
In the meanwhile, district deputy commissioner, Dr M T Reju, has issued order for holding re-election for the post of president in Vandse gram panchayat on February 13. He also has appointed three returning officers for holding this election.
During the election process held earlier, Udaykumar Shetty had got elected as vice-president, and election to the post of the president was not held for the reason that members who were eligible to contest for the post had stayed away from the meeting. Shetty later reportedly got angry over a report by Sripathi Hakladi relating to the misuse of election machinery which appeared in ‘Vijayavani’ Kannada newspaper, leading to the assault.