Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Jun 10: Three leaders who led agitators and blocked train movement at Puttur railway station, demanding commencement of passenger train services between Mangalore and Bangalore about 18 months ago, have been served with the court summons. Puttur court has asked them to appear before it on June 12.

President of Putttur Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) U Lokesh Hegde, block Congress president Kavu Hemanath Shetty and Arun Puttila, a leader of Sri Rama Sene, have been served with the summons. The agitators, under the leadership of the PCCI, had held up train at Puttur railway station on November 22, 2007, urging the department to start passenger train services between Mangalore and the state capital. They had expressed their resentment at the delaying tactics employed by the railway department in starting the train, even though goods trains had been running on the line since about a year.

As the railway officials who approached the protestors failed to give a concrete promise on their demands, they held up the passenger train between Mangalore and Subrahmanya for some time. In this regard, the railway policemen had booked cases against the above three leaders apart from 250 other agitators.