Police file case against NHAI Project Director and land owners over Kettikal landslips

City police file case against NHAI and landowners for cutting excess soil, posing threat to traffic and homes.

The city police have filed a case against owners of private land and the Project Director, Mangaluru office, of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for allegedly cutting excess soil from Kettikal hillock, which recently witnessed landslips, posing a threat to the traffic movement on the busy Mangaluru-Moodibidri national highway and to houses atop the hillock.

The landslips also affected ongoging work of widening the Mangaluru-Karkala stretch of the National Highway 169.

The case was filed based on the complaint filed by the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC).

The Assistant Town Planning Officer of MCC A.B. Guruprasad filed the complaint against the land owner Nagaratna Shetty, her son Avinash Shetty, and the Project Director, at the Mangaluru Rural Police Station on August 14.

Mr. Guruprasad said in the complaint that Ms. Shetty and her son allowed the illegal extraction of soil from their land in Kettikal hillock through the NHAI Project Director. It has posed a threat to the wet well being constructed by the MCC on the top portion of the hillock. The MCC issued notices to the three on May 7 and subsequently on June 14 to address the issue. But they failed to take any action, the complaint said.

The Mangaluru Rural police registered the complaint under Sections 431 (mischief by injury to public road) and 432 (mischief by causing inundation or obstruction to public drainage attended with damage) of the Indian Penal Code.

Meanwhile, the Mines and Geology Department on July 6 filed a private complaint before the 3rd Judicial Magistrate First Class Court against Ms. Shetty and Annabathulla Prasad Rao, a representative of the DBL firm, which was assigned to remove the soil from the hillock by the NHAI. The two were accused of offence punishable under Section 22 of Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act.