Belthangady, Aug 18: The residents of Neriya village who are fed up of the frequent arrival of officials to conduct survey to lay the gas pipelines have now decided to turn violent.
The residents said that they are ready to lay down their lives but they will not hand over their land for the project. With this, they have decided to resort to arms against officials setting foot into the village.
The episodes unfurled during a meeting convened at the village on Saturday. The villagers who did not entertain even the MLA said that they wanted a reliable promise from those concerned and till then they would not allow any meeting to be held in the village.
As many as 12 villages in Belthangady taluk will have to bear the scar of the pipeline being laid for HPCL for its Mangalore-Hasan-Mysore gas pipeline project. Accordingly a meeting was arranged at Neriya under the leadership of MLA Vasanth Bangera.
However, the elected representatives and officials were out for a shock as they saw huge crowd standing outside the hall, boycotting the meet.
The situation soon turned tumultuous. When the MLA tried bringing the officials and locals for a talk, the villagers backed out saying that they did not want talks but they only wanted the government to withdraw the project.
The MLA persistently suggested the villagers to see to it that the families to be affected by the project would come together and hold talks with the officials.
The villagers said that there is no point holding talks with the officials because none of the villagers are ready to hand over their land for the project. However, paying respect to the words of the MLA the villagers agreed, after the officials were asked to give genuine information about the project.
Accordingly it has been decided to hold a meeting on August 22 at Gurunarayana Sabha Bhavana in Belthangady.
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