Chamarajpet

Rudrappa Garden

Sujata Ramesh

Ramesh

Bengaluru

water 2

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah leads a Congress rally ahead of the May 12 state assembly elections

Nataraj

Corporator’s husband summons women who raised voice against sewage in water and threatens themIt was a routine assignment – something that every reporter or photographer covers at least a zillion times before they move on to bigger things. What wasn’t routine was what followed – I was virtually kidnapped and held hostage for over 40 minutes; the local corporator’s husband threatened me with his goons towering over me, trying to intimidate me every time their boss raised his voice.I had been asked to shoot a few pictures of the dirty water (it was as dark as cola) oozing out of taps in’s. A local resident, an ardent reader of Bangalore Mirror, had called up the office for help. Around 1.15 pm, I reached the area and started clicking pictures of the jet black water that many residents had collected.Just then, around six persons on bikes surrounded me and demanded that I accompany them as ‘He’ wanted to see me. When I asked who He was, they said it was Ramesh. When I told them that I would meet him after I’m done talking to the residents, they weren’t amused. They escorted me – forcefully – to a building 200 m away. On the ground floor was the local corporator’s office –is the corporator of ward number 141, Azad Nagar. Her husband, Ramesh, was sitting in the middle of the big hall with around 50-60 people surrounding him.“Who called you here?”“One of the residents; a reader.”“Give me his mobile number.”I refused and braced for assault by 50+ of his supporters in that dingy room. Just then I saw that the two women I had been speaking to had been brought – forcibly – to the office.Ramesh then started threatening the two.“I got 40 borewells for our ward and solved the water issue. And you have called him (pointing to me)? Now you won’t get water and will be forced to pay lakhs in penalty,” he said.The women looked scared; they started pleading withto forgive them. They regretted calling the press, they said. We don’t have anything personally against you but the water is really killing us, they said. (I couldn’t believe I was hearing this in the heart of. Is this democracy or dictatorship?)Ramesh thundered: “You should have come to my office and mention the issue in the ledger.” He tossed the big, fat ledger on his table. The women recoiled in fear.Ramesh then asked his men to throw the women out; “I don’t want to talk to them, I know what I have to do to them,” he said.“I am a law graduate and was a journalist for 15 years,” he claimed, adding: “If you write a word on this, I will send a legal notice.”I was escorted out of his office. I registered a complaint with the Chamarajpet police station in the evening.The core issue: Sewage mixed in drinking waterOver 200 residents from 40 houses in Rudrappa Garden area have been living without drinking water for the past three months. A black-coloured liquid with a pungent smell oozes out whenever they turn on the tap.The problem seems to be limited to Fifth Cross of Rudrappa Garden. Bloating, nausea, fever are common among children and adults alike here.Residents say they have stopped using tap water and call for water tankers twice a week instead.A techie who refused to be identified after the threats from the corporator’s office said: “We have been facing this problem for three months now. We call for water tankers but for how long can we keep doing that?”Another resident said: “The neighbouring street has a public tap and we collect water from there.”BWSSB Water Inspectorsaid: “The end pipe connection frequently gets damaged because of which the sewage water is getting mixed with the drinking water. Engineers have figured out the problem and we are working on it. Half of the problem has been solved and we are working on the other half.”