A WAIT IN VAIN: People waiting at the Central City Bus Stand in Gulbarga on Wednesday. Buses were withdrawn by the NEKRTC authorities as a precautionary measure in view of the bandh called by unemployed engineering graduates.

GULBARGA: A handful of lathi-wielding Dalit youths roaming around Gulbarga city in a couple of autorickshaws and a multi-utility vehicle enforced a bandh in the city in support of the demand of unemployed engineering graduates from Scheduled Castes and Tribes to fill backlog vacancies in government departments immediately.

Shops closed

Traders downed the shutters and autorickshaw drivers took the vehicles off the roads seeing the intimidatory tactics of the Dalit youths. Police personnel remained a mute witness to all this. A police jeep was seen following the multi-utility vehicle in which these Dalit youths were going around the city and enforcing the bandh.

The Dalit engineering graduates have been seeking filling of backlog vacancies for long. The State Government had failed to keep up its promise to fill up these vacancies.

Though the grievance of the graduates was genuine, the response to the bandh call given by the Karnataka State SC and ST Unemployed Engineers Horata Kriya Sangh from residents of the city was not voluntary. Almost all the shops and business establishments in the city were open in the morning till the Dalit youths took to the streets. Even the autorickshaws which were plying on the roads till 11 a.m. were forced to keep off the roads by the youths with their intimidatory tactics.

There were instances of youths forcing the occupants, even women, out of the autorickshaws mid-way and chasing the vehicles away near the City Central Bus Stand and the Rashtrapathi Chowk and a few other localities. In the procession taken out by the sangha activists, hardly about 100 youths participated.

They burnt the effigy of Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, who is also the Chairman of the Cabinet Sub Committee on the backlog vacancies, for failing to take a decision on the filling up of the backlog vacancies.

The NEKRTC suspended its city and mofussil services as a precautionary measure.

Leaders who participated in the procession included senior Dalit leader Shivaram Moga and State organising secretary of the Republican Party of India A.B. Hosamani. RPI was the only organisation which extended its support to the bandh call and all other Dalit organisations were conspicuous by their absence.

Memorandum

In a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and submitted to the district authorities, the sangha pointed out that the promise given by the Chief Minister during his visit to Gulbarga city in July this year on filling of backlog vacancies remained only on paper. They also criticised the indifferent attitude of the Deputy Chief Minister in not convening the meeting of the Cabinet Sub-committee on the backlog vacancies and taking measures to fill these vacancies.

They wanted the Government to delegate the powers of filling up backlog vacancies to the Social Welfare Department.

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