Bengaluru Metro signboards defaced again by pro-Kannada outfit

Mangalore Today News Network

Bengaluru, jul 20, 2017 : Signboards at Bengaluru’s Metro stations were defaced again on Thursday, with Hindi letters painted over in black.

 

The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (Forum for protection of Karnataka), a hardline pro-Kannada fringe group, claimed the responsibility for vandalising the boards at eight stations.

“We are willing to face the law... but we will not stop our movement till the imposition of Hindi stops,” KRV leader TA Narayana Gowda said.

Earlier this month, Hindi signs were papered over at two stations. Names of stations are written in Kannada, English and Hindi.

The KRV defaced some boards earlier this year as well but the row has escalated after the some sharp exchanges between the Congress-ruled state and at the BJP government at the Centre.


The notification also asked non-Hindi speaking states to use three languages -- the state’s official language, Hindi, and English – for announcements and in signboards at metro and train stations.

“Today, the people of Karnataka are being called traitors by the national media just because we have demanded that our Kannada flag be made an official flag,” KRV’s Gowda said. “They have twisted this to mean that we have rejected the national flag.”

The state government recently set up a panel to study legal provisions of having a state flag, a move seen as a gambit by the Congress ahead of next year’s assembly election.

The only Indian state with a separate flag is Jammu and Kashmir that, too, because it enjoys special powers under Article 370 of the Constitution.

courtesy:HT