Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (DV)
Mangaluru, Feb 27: Hours after the horrific accident at Nanthoor took three lives, relatives of Preetham Pinto who died in the mishap, along with locals gathered at the accident spot and staged a protest.
Preetham Pinto (21), Veena (40) and her daughter Nitisha (13) died after a tipper went out of control reportedly due to brake failure and rammed into an electricity pole near Nanthoor circle before crashing into an Alto car, which in turn hit Preetham's bike. The accident took place on Friday February 27 evening.
A few hours after Preetham succumbed to injuries, his neighbour Lawrence D'Souza, member of the Konkani Sahitya Academy, and locals gathered near Nanthoor junction and participated in the protest. Konkani Sahitya Academy president Roy Castelino was also present.
The protestors said that despite several accidents at Nanthoor circle, the authorities had failed to take any suitable measures to set right the problem. "There is no proper signal nor enough police personnel to monitor the traffic at this junction," they said. They also demanded that the lorry driver be arrested soon and stringently punished.
They also demanded that the DCP visit the spot and refused to end the protest without meeting him.
Locals too joined the protestors and they blocked traffic for sometime.
The Kadri police arrived at the spot and tried to convince the protestors, but in vain.
When the situation seemed to go out of control, the KSRP team was called into action and the police resorted to mild baton charge to disperse the crowd, after which the protest came to an end.
Speaking to daijiworld, Kadri inspector T D Nagaraj said that though the demands of the protestors were justified and they had the right to protest, the police action was necessary as many locals joined in the protest and caused public inconvenience by blocking the traffic.
Lawrence D'Souza who was injured in the lathi charge has been admitted to Father Muller hospital in city. Sources close to him said that he did not lead the protest was but was only proceeding to the police station to file FIR related to the incident as the representative from the family of the deceased Preetham Pinto.
MLA J R Lobo visited Lawrence in the hospital later. It is learnt that Lawrence complained to Lobo that he was hit by inspector T D Nagaraj, and Lobo promised to look into the matter.