Police constable assaults top official of Belagavi airport

Belagavi, Feb 18: Staff of Sambra airport here triggered to protest after police head constable deployed on airport duty allegedly assaulted the joint general manager of the airport on Wednesday noon following silly issue.

According to sources, Eshwarappa, head of infrastructure development activities at the airport was assaulted by the constable named Karlakoppa on the issue of removing barricades for car parking. Minor verbal clash turned violent enraging constable to slap the top official. Sub-inspector Manjula attempted hard to control the constable but in vain. Eshwarappa also worked as an airport controlled of Sambra airport earlier.

After the incident, staff of around 55 employees arrived to city and submitted memorandum to DC N Jayaram seeking action against the police constable and deploying decent police personnel on airport duty. DC gave them assurance of taking proper legal action and convinced not to go on strike further. DC said "I have talked with city police commissioner Saumendu Mukherjee on the matter".

Esharappa said entire incident has been recorded into CCTV camera. Police can initiate action based on camera footages. "First constable used filthy language against me and later assaulted. We don't want to disrupt daily activities of airport by going on strike. We also don't want to make this issue bigger. Just what we want is proper legal action against culprit and deploying decent police personnel at the airport where people of high statute visit", he said.

Later they visited to city police commissioner's office and waited for over an hour for commissioner as he was outside. Staff returned back to Sambra only after commissioner assured them about visiting the airport on Thursday and taking legal action against offender.