In an escalation of the ongoing row on Maharashtra-Karnataka border, trucks with MH number plates were reportedly vandalised in Belagavi. One of the truck's windshield cracked after stone pelting.
The incident comes amid a protest by an organisation called Kannada Rakshana Vedike that reportedly turned violent amid the broiling issue inter-state clash over claiming some of the villages one of which is Belagavi.
Since Maharashtra's inception in 1960, it been entangled in a dispute with Karnataka over the status of Belagavi district and 80 other Marathi speaking villages, which are in the control of the southern state of Karnataka. The dispute is long pending before the Supreme Court.
Karnataka Minister of Youth Empowerment and Sports detained
The Kannada Rakshana Vedike, staged a protest near Belgaum after the Chief Minister of Karnataka claimed Jat, Akkalkot and other areas along with Belgaum.
The members of the organizations pelted stones at six trucks from Maharashtra at Hirebagwadi toll booth. At this time, some activists hoisted flags on the truck. Narayan Gowda, Karnataka Minister of Youth Empowerment and Sports has been detained and taken into custody along with the activists.
The Kannada organization took a stand to prevent Maharashtra ministers from entering Belgaum and attacked Maharashtra's vehicles.
Ministers who were scheduled to visit Karnataka
Amid the development, Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai; appointed for coordinating the state's border dispute with Karnataka, were earlier scheduled to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti at Belagavi in the southern state on Tuesday and hold talks with them on the decades-old border issue.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday said he will ask his Maharashtra counterpart Eknath Shinde not to send his cabinet colleagues to Belagavi as their visit may disrupt the law and order situation in the border district.
Asserting the border dispute with Maharashtra is settled, the CM said he has already instructed the officials concerned regarding the measures to be taken in case the ministers go ahead with the visit, and that the government will not hesitate to take any legal action.
Talking to reporters on Tuesday, Pawar claimed that since the last few weeks, conscious attempts were being made by the Karnataka CM to take the situation in a different direction.
"Time has come to take a stand after seeing what is happening in border areas. The situation there is worrisome," said former Union minister Pawar, whose party was part of the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
Last week, Chandrakant Patil said there was a demand from the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, an organisation fighting for the merger of Belagavi and some other border areas with Maharashtra, to hold discussions with the volunteers on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border issue.
