Thousands of visitors to the Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha and Legislators' Home, such as farmers, teachers, persons with disabilities, students and reporters, have been put to hardship after the security around the Secretariat buildings was tightened following a sting operation where a mediaperson managed to smuggle in a weapon inside the Vidhana Soudha some months ago.
Detour
Entry to the Soudhas became difficult and visitors had to take a detour through the gate between the Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha on the B.R. Ambedkar Veedhi with the D. Devaraj Urs statue entry permitted only to Ministers, MLAs, MPs and officials and their vehicles.
With the Namma Metro work in progress on the Ambedkar Veedhi, the gate at the north-eastern corner is being used as an exit and the police have been instructed not to allow anybody, except government officials, between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
From afar
Many people who come from remote villages armed with letters from the elected representatives, are turned back on the pretext they don't have ID cards.
The signatories of the letters could only hitherto plead helplessness.
Recently, U.T. Khader, Congress MLA representing Mangalore, also had to endure people of his constituency being humiliated by security personnel at the heart of government administration.
Letter to Speaker
Fed up with this, Mr. Khader wrote to Assembly Speaker K.G. Bopaiah a week ago about how people were being forced to wait for hours or flatly denied entry. Most of these visitors were not aware that the securitymen would ask for their IDs or prized the IDs so much they left them back at home. Also, Mr. Khader said, when there was a letter of recommendation from their elected representatives, what business did the securitymen have to stop them at the gate?
Proper search
Instead of harassing the public, Mr. Khader told the Speaker that the police could be advised to thoroughly pat down the visitors who could leave their belongings at the reception before being allowed to proceed.
When The Hindu contacted the Commissioner of Police Jyothi Prakash Mirji for his reaction, he said suitable instructions would be issued to S. Lakshman Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, VVIP Security, Vidhana Soudha, to relax the procedure for those armed with letters from their elected representatives.
