BENGALURU: The illegal confinement of BBMP officials sparked a protest by their colleagues in the city on Monday demanding a strict action against the wrong-doers. A group of four people had confined a woman assistant revenue officer of the BBMP and her colleagues to their office for five hours at RPC Layout near Vijaynagar on Saturday. Police arrested the prime accused, Shivakumar, soon after the incident came to light.
A senior officer of Vijayanagar police station stated that the assistant revenue officer, Nirmala S M (55), alleged in her complaint that she was locked along with her staff from 5 pm till 10pm. Shivakumar along with his associates Sachin, Omkar N and Dakshinamurthy came to the office in the evening and demanded the documents related to a land situated at Hosahalli. Since he sought documents related to the year 2003-04, the staff asked him to give them a few days’ time to issue the papers demanded by them, the officer said quoting the complaint. But Shivakumar was not ready to listen to the officials and locked the gates from outside, the officer said.
The landlord’s associates snatched the mobile phones and other belongings of the staff and threatened them saying they would not allow them to leave the office until they got the documents, he said. The family members of the officials, who tried to reach them around 10.30pm, were shocked to see that they were confined to the office.
They video-recorded the incident before alerting the police. Based on a tip off, Shivakumar was arrested from his house and three of his associates are still at large, he said. Efforts are on to nab the other accused. The protesting BBMP officials on Monday demanded that the accused be brought to book and stringent action be taken against them so that such incidents do not take place again the future.