Weight the cops shouldered

Moving tales

Seethamma, 101, after being rescued.

Centenarian Seethamma’s eyes lit up in recognition when the policemen in plainclothes walked into her room in her ancestral house in Agarmar in Belthangady taluk.

“Seethamma clutching our hands kept telling everyone that we had saved her life,” informs a beaming Ravi B S serving as a sub-inspector in Belthangady police station. A week ago, relatives in the Agarmar house on learning about the massive landslides destroying hundreds of acres of areca plantations in Makki and Parladka villages had given up hopes on seeing their agile granny alive.

It was not just the relatives of Seethamma, most villagers in Malavanthige village in Belthangady taluk believed that the infirm, elderly and the paralytical patients, who were confined to their beds, would perish in the landslides. Villagers also could not summon the courage to cross the streams which had turned into a river in spate and rescue the bed-ridden people residing high in the hills.

With the mobile network being paralysed, there was no means of knowing the fate of families residing in the mountains. Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police B M Laxmi Prasad told DH that the members of Anti Naxal Squad (ANS), a special wing of the Belthangady police, had a good rapport with the families and were familiar with the terrain.

Immediately Belthangady police contacted Mangalore Electricity Supply Company and disconnected the power supply to regions hit by floods and landslides to prevent people from stepping on a live wire. On the following morning, after trekking uphill about six km, they reached Annu Malekudiya’s house in Makki from where they operated.

The cops heaved a sigh of relief as the family had shifted the paralytic Sheenappa Gowda to Annu’s house after the hill behind Gowda’s house had caved in. Ravi says he and ANS members including Kanakraj, Rajesh N, Yathindra K, Ragha N D, Rajesh, Ramanna Gowda and Deviprasad, brainstormed them on how to shift Gowda safely to the nearest relief centre which was six km away from Annu’s house.

“Initially we decided to carry Sheenappa Gowda on a chair tied to two massive poles. But as the descent on the slippery narrow path was treacherous, we decided to carry Gowda in a blanket tied to the ends of the bamboo pole.

The traditional ‘cradle’ (in villages babies are placed in clothe-cradle hanging from the ceiling) method, also allowed us to march single file,” Ravi recollected.

Another paralytic woman, Appi, was found abandoned in her Kalkaru house by her only relative. The men used the same strategy to shift not just Appi but another bed-ridden patient Babu Gowda from Kalkaru Bailu. Prasad, says over 30 men, women and children were rescued by Beltangady police.

They with the help of local residents also carried out repair works and placed sandbags on Kolli bridge to facilitate movement. Laxmi Prasad informed that Dharmasthala police in
association with National Disaster Response Force had rescued 150 people including a couple of pregnant women who would have been washed away in the floods near Hosamatha bridge in Charmadi Ghat.

People say that these cops saved hundreds of lives with their quick thinking and swift action.