Sugarcane growers 'assault' officers for instigating act

 Tension prevailed for sometime when the members of Karnataka State Sugarcane Growers Association, assaulted two workers of a sugar factory for instigating farmers against them on the premises of deputy commissioner’s office in the city on Saturday.

Deputy commissioner P S Vastrad had convened a meeting of sugarcane growers and Bannari Amman Sugarcane Factory to fix the price over sugarcane, at his office at 11 am.
Accordingly, the members of Sugarcane Growers Association and farmers had converged at the office of deputy commissioner.

Sources said, all was fine till the cane growers learnt about the alleged vicious attempts made by two field officers of the factory in instigating the farmers against them.
It soon turned violent with some among the cane workers beating field officers black and blue.

While one of the officers had to run for life and boarded an autorickshaw, another was rescued by the police personnel present at the spot. He too followed his colleague and vanished from the spot in no time.

However, the tension remained with both farmers and cane growers sitting on dharna in separate places near DC’s office. While the farmers petitioned additional deputy commissioner Naga Nayak to even extend invitation for them too, for such meetings, the cane growers alleged that the deputy commissioner has taken them for a ride.
The additional deputy commissioner explained that the deputy commissioner had to rush to Bangalore for an emergency meeting.

He clarified that the deputy commissioner had asked him to inform the cane growers in advance for the change in schedule, besides postponing the meeting.
As a precautionary measure, apart from the platoon of DAR police office, additional platoon of KSRP had been summoned to the spot.