SOUTH KANNADA: Amid calls to give up and throw the NITK tollgate, which is allegedly functioning illegally at Surathkal town into the Arabian Sea, Karnataka police have beefed up tight security arrangements to avert any violence on Tuesday.
At the Surathkal tollgate, there are 10 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP), 5 platoons of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 450 police constables, and 40 senior police officers.
Surathkal Tollgate Struggle Committee, which is leading the agitation, has extended help from a lot of groups and people in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. The committee has also set up plans to remove the tollgate with the help of 5,000 people.
The committee held a protest about this on September 14, and the Highway authority's regional officer promised to take it down in a month. The person in charge of the committee, Muneer Katipalla, told the regional officer that people would break the tollgate and throw it into the Arabian Sea if it wasn't moved.
The protesters want to know when the NITK tollgate will be completely closed for good. They told the authorities that they had to leave the tollgate by October 18.
The Surathkal NITK tollgate seems to be operating against the law. The tollgate was put up temporarily six years ago, with the agreement that it would be taken down when the tollgate in Hejamadi town, which is nine kilometres away, began to work.
But drivers still have to pay the toll at the NITK tollgate, even though the Hejamadi tollgate is now open. Katipalla says that the commotion caused the highway officials to decide to shut down the Surathkal tollgate. The government of the state had also agreed. Even so, he said, the illegal collection had kept going.
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