VIZIANAGARAM: “I was on my way home from college along with my two friends a few days ago. A drunk person almost accosted us. But we chose to ignore and literally ran. He made vulgar gestures and passed on offensive comments. We were scared. Such things have become a routine on that stretch,” says a 16-year-old girl while narrating about her experience on the road that connects Dwarapudi village with Vizianagaram.
The road passes through a real estate layout on an isolated stretch which has become a safe haven for the boozers of late. Apart from the residents of Dwarapudi, a village adopted by Union Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju, and several others villages nearby, the girl students of Saint Thomas Vocational Junior College have to pass the said stretch to reach their homes.
Women and girls do not feel it safe anymore to pass that stretch, thanks to the nuisance created by the boozers. A visit by this correspondent on Sunday revealed the ground reality. The road passing through a real estate layout which has become boozers’ den if the empty liquor bottles, snacks wrappers and ply packets with leftover food strewn all over are the indications.
Th residents say that as the boozers in groups start gathering there from the late afternoon and evening. They organise parties and create a nuisance on the road, much to the inconvenience of the people passing through the stretch. High on alcohol, they take up arguments, make vulgar gestures, pass on offensive comments to the girls and women.
“As our college is near Dwarpudi, we have to take that road. The nuisance has become unbearable of late, many of us prefer to bunk colleges for the reason. Our parents also have strictly told us not to travel along on that road. As the site is vacant, many youth and elders alike have made it the venue for their booze parties,” says Ramu, a college student of KL Puram.
The stretch between Dwarpudi and KL Puram is an isolated area with no houses nearby except for a gas godown and a petrol pump. And this has given a free hand to the boozers to create a nuisance, adds Ramu. The police too admit that the place has become a booze venue.
“We are yet to receive any complaints about the boozers creating a nuisance or harassing women and girls so far. Now that we came to about this, we will keep a strict vigil,” says Vizianagaram I-Town CI V Chandra Sekhar when TNIE brought this issue to his notice.