Sena activists burn BSY's effigy, stop film screening

Inter-state bus service hit over Belagavi tension

The decades-old dispute over Belagavi escalated on Sunday as Shiv Sena workers hit the streets in Kolhapur burning effigies of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai and stopping the screening of Kannada movie Avane Srimannarayana in Kolhapur.

The agitating Shiv Sainiks raised slogans against the Karnataka government and Yediyurappa. The protesters also blackened billboards, name boards of a few shopkeepers, with Kannada text, in Gandhinagar area in Kolhapur.

Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane and former Congress MLA Satej Patil participated in the protest rally.

People travelling to Kolhapur and Belagavi were inconvenienced as buses from Maharashtra did not ply while KSRTC had stalled its service to Kolhapur via Nippani for a few hours.

As a precautionary measure, bus service to Kolhapur and other parts of Maharashtra was stopped in the morning. But the bus service resumed in the evening, NWKRTC divisional controller M R Munji told DH.

Video goes viral

Meanwhile, a video of Shiv Sainiks threatening to send Kannadigas staying in Maharashtra back to Karnataka, if the Kannada organisations target Marathi-speaking people in Belagavi district, has gone viral on social media.

The tension between the states escalated after Karnataka Navanirman Sene activists threatened to oppose the felicitation programme of NCP MLA from Chandgad Rajesh Patil in Belagavi.