BENGALURU: Just like Bengaluru’s infamous traffic bottlenecks which have so far evaded a tangible solution, the Chief Minister’s home office ‘Krishna’ seems to be facing a peculiar problem which does not seem to get resolved — golf balls flying into the premises from across the road.
The lemon-sized balls are somehow finding their way through small gaps in the fencing of the Bangalore Golf Course, much to the chagrin the security establishment and golfers alike. On Friday, a ball shot from the golf course landed on the premises of the CM’s home office yet again, causing a security scare. Luckily, no one was injured.
Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa had a tight schedule, holding a series of meetings with officials of different departments. He also had a meeting with Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smrithi Irani. Soon after she left, the golf ball landed on the premises.
“The ball came hurtling. It could have seriously injured someone. This is not the first time such a thing has happened. This is the Chief Minister’s office and such issues pose a serious security threat,’’ said a police personnel posted on duty there.
In a similar incident in July last year, a flying golf ball had cracked the windshield of senior IPS officer Seemanth Kumar Singh’s car, narrowly missing the police personnel who were near the vehicle.
After the incident, the then Home Minister G Parameshwara had raised the issue of relocating the Bangalore Golf Course. The then Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy was having a meeting with Biocon chairman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on that day.
Netted fence is a death trap for birds
After the incident, the golf course authorities had decided to increase the height of the fence from 100 ft to 115 ft, but nothing has been done so far. Activists had opposed any increase in the height of the netted fence saying that it had already become a death trap for birds. In 2006 too, when Kumaraswamy was CM, a golf ball flew into the same premises, injuring one person during the Janata Darshan programme.