MLA's henchmen attack school event
Bengaluru: Harish Punja, MLA of Belthangady in Dakshina Kannada is now in an eye of a storm. He had his followers have been accused of storming a school day function and disrupting the school day entertainment event. This incident occured in a school called Arambodu village in Belthangady taluk on January 1.
The school was observing its school day and a comedy play was on the show. An amateur theatre group 'Comedy Kiladis' was performing on the stage. The play was in the middle of its flow when Harish Punja and his henchmen arrived on the site where the event was in progress.
On his arrival all the committee members and their leader Chandrahas got up and rushed to welcome him and his entourage, Chandrahas the school committee felt obliged that the MLA Harish Punja should be accommodated on the stage for a stage function and ordered the drama team to stop the show and make way for the MLA.
When the theatre team could not gather what was happening and continued the stage of the play at this, a group of MLA's henchmen pull the plug off from the power supply source and rendered the entire school and the event site in darkness. The followers of MLA then shouted at the school authorities and the theatre group for not stopping the play as soon as the MLA arrived.
After hearing the shouts of the henchmen and the darkness the audience which had small children, their parents and some aged persons panicked and started running out of the school premises. In the melee, the plastic chairs assembled there tumbled and made it even worse for the people to move out. Luckily a stampede was prevented as some school committee members put on their mobile phone lights and helped the people.
Leader of the theatre group Om Shetty from Moodbidri has made a video narrating the incident which has gone viral. However, the MLA and his henchmen did not even make an attempt to pacify the people or restore order at the venue. MLA was supposed to come two hours before but decided to come at 11.30 and disrupted the school day programme