Pics: Spoorthi Ullal / Ramesh Pandith
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (DV)

Mangaluru, Oct 14: After Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar and VHP district president Jagadish Shenava, now MP Nalin Kumar Kateel also has demanded Rs 25 lac as compensation to the family of Prashant Poojary, a flower vendor and Bajrang Dal activist who was recently murdered in Moodbidri. Nalin also hinted that Congress leaders were behind the incident.

Addressing a press meet at the district BJP office here, Nalin said, "It was a daylight murder and police have failed to investigate the case. Moral policiing will occur only when people lose faith in the police department.

"District incharge minister (Ramanath Rai) and other ministers are silent on the issue. It is not I, but people who say that there is political interference in the case and that Congress leaders are behind the incident. Why are the Congress leaders silent? The district incharge should have kept politics away and visited Prashant Poojary's house, but he did not.

"The police should immediately arrest the culprits and the state government should provide Rs 25 lac as compensation to Prashant's family. If any other untoward incident takes place in future, government itself will be responsible. The people in Moodbidri are living in fear and they may take law into their hands. Hence, it is the responsibility of the government to take appropriate action," he said.

On BJP's padayatra against Yettinahole project that concluded on the night of Tuesday October 13 with the arrest and release of Nalin Kumar Kateel, Shobha Karandlaje and party activists, the MP said, "The padayatra was organized to create awareness among people about the unscientific method in implementing the Yettinahole project. More than 25,000 joined the padayatra and more than a 1,000 people supported, blessed and cooperated with us.

"The voice of the people has reached the government. Our struggle was democratic, but fearing our protest, the government stopped our padayatra before we reached Yettinahole. This was a peaceful and non-violent method of protest. Keeping party politics away, only the Yettinahole issue was the focus. We were supposed to hold public meet at Yettinahole, but the government interfered. The party (Congress) which claims to follow the Gandhian policy has murdered Gandhi's principles by curbing our protest. This is an attempt to shake our self-confidence, but our crusade has grown only stronger," he said.

"It is an unscientific project. The government wants to implement a Rs 13,000-crore project which is nothing but an attempt to loot the people by those with vested political interest. BJP and I will support the protest called on October 15 at Pumpwell and I invite people of DK to also join in," he added.

To a question whether he would ask the union government to stop the Yettinahole project, he said, "Now the ball is in the chief miniser's court. If the chief minister cannot stop this project, let him say so publicly. I will then stop this project."

District BJP president Pratap Simha Nayak said, "Our struggle against the Yettinahole project will not end till the project is dropped. We have also collected opinions from people irrespective of caste and religion, and all of them have supported our cause. We will hold a district-level committee meeting to discuss the people's suggestions and try to materialize them.

"We have also asked the zilla panchayat and taluk panchayats to pass a resolution to stop this project, and also in all the gram panchayats where BJP is in power. The public hearing on the project should be held in the district itself with the initiative of the district incharge minister, who should be our voice in conveying the same to the CM," he said.