Mangalore: The monthly SC/ST grievance redressal meet held at the SP office on March 3, Sunday witnessed some heated debate when members of Baira Samaj from Bantwal charged the Bantwal police of apathy in looking into their complaints.

Participating in the meeting, Gopal Kadumutt, state legal authority member and honorary President of Baira Samaja, referred to the case of attack on Sandeep, a bus cleaner  belonging to the community  who was pulled out of the bus and attacked by  Sunil, a bus employee and Sujith an autorickshaw driver on February 4.

Kadumutt pointed out that the Bantwal police initially refused to accept a complaint from the victim and when the  Samaj members approached the cops on his behalf they were asked to remove certain words like ‘murder attempt,’ and ‘caste discrimination’ mentioned in the complaint. The  complaint was accepted  at around midnight, he said.

The accused were arrested on February 18 and were granted bail the very next day, he pointed out.

Shashidhar K, another member of the community also questioned  why the police took so long to arrest the culprits.

DySP Sadananda Varnekar who chaired the meet in the absence of the SP assured to  reconsider the case.

S P Ananda, president of Dalit Sangharsha Samithi  urged for an impartial probe into the Sowmya murder case in Kalladka.