KOCHI: In protest against ‘improper garbage collection’ by Haritha Karma Sena workers, a man dumped garbage inside the employees’ cabins at a grama panchayat office on Saturday. Anoop, a resident of Vengola near Kunnathunad, went for this unusual protest at the Vengola grama panchayat while the staff and members were busy attending a programme as part of Chingam 1 celebrations.
“Around noon, Anoop entered the panchayat office and dumped garbage in the employees’ cabins, claiming that the poor response of the Haritha Karma Sena workers drove him to take this action,” said Vengola ward member Rajimol Rajan. He recorded the entire incident on video with the help of another person. Anoop resides in the Varikkad ward and runs a fish stall at the junction, she said. “The functioning of Haritha Karma Sena is proper in the ward,” she added.
“Our preliminary investigation shows that the garbage Anoop dumped inside the office was not collected by our Haritha Karma Sena squad. The documents we retrieved indicate that the trash was collected by cleaning workers from Kollappally, Kottayam, and later handed over to the Clean Kerala company for disposal,” said Shihab Pallikkal, the president of Vengola grama panchayat. He said that it appeared to be a sack from a batch of 25 collected sacks that might have fallen from a vehicle during transportation. Despite this, the panchayat plans to review the functioning of the Haritha Karma Sena in the light of the incident, he added.
“Due to the incident, the staff were unable to perform their duties for the day. As a result, the panchayat authorities have filed a complaint against Anoop for obstructing official duties and causing public nuisance,” Shihab said.
Meanwhile, based on the complaint filed by the office staff, the police have registered a case against Anoop and Aneesh who assisted him. They face multiple charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.