Udupi MLA ends indefinite day-and-night protest

The protesters led by legislator Raghupathi Bhat ended their eight-day-long indefinite day-and-night protest demanding permission to all 171 licencees to mine sand.

Rajendra Kumar Kataria, principal secretary (Mines and Geology Department), who had reached the venue of protest, promised that the issue would be taken up with the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and will be solved shortly.

‘No bandh’

Raghupathi Bhat, along with Kataria and former MP Jayaprakash Hegde, will now go to New Delhi on Friday. He added that, as of now, the bandh call planned on November 10 was cancelled.

Earlier in the day Pejawar Mutt seer Vishwesha Theertha Swami had extended all support to the agitators protesting at the deputy commissioner’s office. The pontiff, reciting the ‘Vishnu Sahasranama,’ sat along with the protesters for about 10 minutes.

The seer said the environment should be protected and sand should be made available to all. He threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike if the sand crisis was not solved before November 10.