ELECTION PEACEFUL IN KODAGU;

Madikeri September 28, 2007

Election to four local bodies went on peacefully in Kodagu and the percentage of polling was 60.97 , according to police.

About 310 candidates contested from four places, Madikeri, Kushalnagar, Virajpet and Somwarpet. Though an incident of Masjidh attack was reported the day before night in South Kodagu, law and order was at its best all over. However the polling was slow and uninteresting along with a cloudy weather.

District had 111 polling booths for 71 wards. Out of them 17 are considered as hyper sensitive and 43 are considered as sensitive by police.

City Municipal Council at Madikeri and Town panchayaths of Somwarpet, Virajpet and Kushalnagar awaits new teams to lead them. While congress, BJP and JDs have fielded their candidates all over, the district witnessed a much larger team of independents.

PRAYER HALL ATTACKED; TWO ARRESTED

Chakkera Manu and Konganda Viju trespassed into a mosque in South Kodagu on Monday night and created ruckus.

Police arrested the accused in a swift action yesterday.

According to police, the duo trespassed into mosque at Bemmathi near Mayamudi by ten at night and poured liquor inside the mosque, tore off Koran and stole a wooden knife being worshipped. They used vulgar language against the inmates, president of the Mosque, P.Ahmad said.

Earlier on 26th night, the accused allegedly attacked the house of a laborer K.M.Ali and filled his open will with firewood.

One of the accused Manu said that sandal wood was stolen from his estate and he suspects the involvement of people linked to the mosque.

Police arrested the accused and sent them to judicial custody after producing them to court.

MLC Arun Machaiah, former vice president of the Zilla Panchayath, Iqbal Hassan and others visited the spot. Machaiah has called for restraint and appealed to people to maintain peace and harmony.

ELEPHANT RAMPAGE CONTINUES;

Madikeri September 27, 2007

Elephant rampage in the district continues in spite of the repeated plea and protests by people of Kodagu.

A herd of elephants attacked the estate belonging to one Madu Madappa at Hanchikad near Ammathi and rampaged Areca trees. Madu said that he has incurred heavy loss and a complaint to this effect was given to forest officials. He also said that a herd had already attacked his estate once recently and caused a loss of rupees 1.5 lakhs. The forest department knows about it and did nothing to stop the elephants. He disclosed that the herd of elephants is roaming round the estate during broad day light.

He has appealed to the forest department to pay compensation and control the elephants.

In another incident, farmers of Kajoor, Aigoor and cluster of villages in Somwarpet taluk have complained to the forest department about the elephant attacks.

They have claimed that about two acres of paddy crop was completely damaged and coffee crop is also damaged in many places. They complain that the forest department is not listening to their pleas to control the menace and turning a blind eye towards the happening. Our children cannot walk to the schools nor the labourers attend to estate works freely, they say.

ASTRO TURF MUST FOR PLAYERS;

National hockey player S.V.Sunil told that basic training in Astro turf is important for the development of hockey players.

Talking to this correspondent at Madikeri, Sunil said that Kodagu has budding players who can rise to the height by practicing in Astro turf.

Sunil, a native of Somwarpet is hopeful that India will enter Olympics after playing in Chili. He recalled the Asian cup in which India won against Srilanka and said that the coach Jokim Carvalo’s effort, team spirit and the qualitative gamesby the players brought Indian team success, he said.