The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s drive to shut down commercial activities in residential areas has triggered the ire of unidentified persons, who have sent the Palike’s Joint Director of Health and Solid Waste Management, Sarfaraz Khan, a death threat.
On Saturday, Sarfaraz Khan took to Facebook, describing the nature of the threat. The brown envelope, in which the letter arrived at his residence on Aga Abbas Ali Road, is said to have come from the BJP’s Ulsoor office.
“You have issued notices to all commercial establishments on Aga Abbas Ali Road. Don’t show your strength or you will be finished. We get complaints from public or go to Pakistan,” the letter reads.
Reacting strongly to the incident, Sarfaraz Khan, wrote a strongly-worded post.
“If the cowards who run unauthorised business in residential areas, illegally, think that, they can scare me with a 'Death threat', they are wrong. As long as I am holding this authority, which is given by the government to me, I will put my full strength in seeing this illegal business reaches its logical end. It is so sad that the cowards are falsely using the name of a political party, to create ill will and confuse people,” his Facebook post reads.
Speaking to TNM, Sarfaraz Khan said that the letter could be a response to a circular issued by the Palike in December 2016, asking commercial establishments to vacate from residential areas.
“I will file a complaint with the police on Monday,”’ Khan said.
According to the recent Karnataka High Court ruling, commercial establishments must not operate in residential areas. The BBMP Commissioner, Manjunath Prasad had issued the circular asking these establishments to vacate from residential areas, he said.
“I am in charge of issuing notices. This High Court ruling will affect over 20,000 establishments,” he added.
In his Facebook Post, Khan also said that the BBMP’s new move to introduce sweeping machines, has upset the garbage mafia.
“Nine machines procured at the cost of Rs 8.5 crore will clean 430 km per day at a cost of about Rs 40 lakh per month. If the same length of roads need to be swept manually, it would cost us Rs 2 crore per month. The BBMP has paid only 60% of the cost of the machines and the rest will be paid in monthly instalments for five years. Until recently, the BBMP was paying Rs 1.2 crore for privately-owned machines for cleaning only 154 km. No wonder there is such opposition and they have criticised the quality of the machines and its pricing. The entire process of acquiring the machines has taken four years after thorough inspection. We will put all information in this regard on public domain so the mafia won’t be able to threaten our workers. The threat could be from anyone even the garbage mafia,” he added.