‘Those damaging propertymay be made accountable’

Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj K.S. Eshwarappa said here on Friday that the government is contemplating making people causing damage and destroying public and private property as individually responsible for such acts.

Speaking to presspersons at the airport here on his way to Karkala, he said that the government will not allow anti-social elements to have a free run and turn the land into a goonda State. He was referring to the violent incidents here last week.

Mr. Eshwarappa defended the government’s move to put compensation it initially announced to the families of the two who died in the police firing in the city on December 19, on hold arguing that the two were not innocents.