Hundreds of protestors detained as precaution during Karnataka bandh; no violence reported: Police

Bengaluru: Hundreds of protestors were detained during Friday’s Karnataka bandh called by pro-Kannada organisations and farmers’ outfits to protest against the release of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu.

The Bengaluru Police detained over 700 agitators who tried to block roads during the day-long shutdown.

Addressing a press conference in the evening, Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said the bandh passed off peacefully in the city, where there were no reports of stone pelting, forceful closure of shops, and stopping of vehicles plying on roads.

A total of 785 protesters were detained and taken into custody as a preventive measure. But they were all released later, he said. Around 1,500 protesters had gathered at Freedom Park here as part of the protests.

Security was tightened in Karnataka with heavy police deployment across the state. The Bengaluru Police had also imposed section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure since Thursday midnight as a precautionary measure. The police also detained scores of protesters who tried to block the Bengaluru-Hosur and Bengaluru-Mysuru National Highways by staging a sit-in protest, official sources said.

In the Cauvery heartland of Mandya, 325 protesters were taken into preventive detention and released later.

Members of farmers associations held a ‘rail-roko’ protest in the district and raised slogans against the state government over releasing Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu. They staged a protest by sitting on the railway track but were taken into custody.

The bandh was observed peacefully in the districts of Chamarajanagara and Mysuru where no preventive detentions were made by the police.