Cops clueless about scale of event

BANGALORE: Not too long ago the city police had given an undertaking to the Karnataka high court that they would not allow any rally or protest in Bangalore if the number of participants in the event was expected to cross 15,000.
But on Sunday when the Vokkaligara Sangha held a Guruvandana programme to felicitate Adichunchanagiri mutt pontiff Sri Balagangadharanatha Swamiji at Palace Grounds, it was not clear what had happened to this police proposal.
In fact, permission had been granted to the organizers without even seeking details about the expected crowd turnout, police sources said, adding that all that police were told was that about 2,800 buses would ferry the crowds to the event. Apparently no homework too was done as a sheer guesstimate that a minimum of 50 people could come in each bus could have put police on alert.
As Sunday dawned, 4,000 buses ferried into the city an estimated 2.5 lakh strong crowd, leaving the small contingent of 423 traffic policemen hopelessly outnumbered and clueless. The organizers, who had expected a 6-lakh turnout, claimed that 4 lakh people participated in the event.
Power nap angers top cop
Sources privy to the happenings in and around Palace Grounds said that the city's traffic police chief, additional commissioner MA Saleem, was himself witness to a couple of his men sleeping while traffic was going haywire a few metres way. Saleem is believed to have taken his men to task before personally getting down to the task, but by then it was too late.
Trouble started in the morning itself as all Palace Grounds-bound traffic was diverted from national and state highways into the Outer Ring Road to reach Bellary Road.
The number of buses that came on to Bellary Road within a few hours was too much for the thoroughfare to withstand. Besides, the buses that had to be parked inside Palace Grounds queued up haphazardly on Bellary Road and Jayamahal Road, throwing other traffic out of gear.
By afternoon, the Guruvandana crowd hijacked traffic management; mobs forced policemen on the road to stop the traffic flow from Cantonment railway station towards Mekhri Circle for hours to allow the Guruvandana buses to return.
"Things are going smooth otherwise. But this particular road (Jayamahal Road) is proving to be troublesome. Many of the bus drivers do not have any road sense. They are stopping the buses abruptly in the middle of the road or parking them on the narrow stretch," Saleem told TOI amidst playing pointsman on the jammed road.
By 3pm, things went beyond police control when mobs came on to the road in front of the JC Road police station. They browbeat the handful of policemen and forcefully brought their buses outside the Palace Grounds.
Police had clearly told the organizers that all buses should leave the grounds only by 4pm. But the mobs shouted slogans against police, sat on the road and made sure that no vehicles passed through. Finally, police had to negotiate with the mob to get some traffic pass by.
Times View
Politicians have frequently held the city hostage by organizing rallies and protests. Film stars, too, have endorsed netas by holding gala events and unleashing chaos on the roads. It now looks like caste organizations don’t want to be left behind. In late 2008, a JD(S) rally brought the city to a standstill for seven hours as thousands turned up for the event. The rally politics, however, came under judicial scrutiny and police assured Karnataka high court that they won’t allow any such event in the city if it were to be more than 15,000-strong . Whatever happened to that commitment?