Farmers who slapped Govt officer for pollution arrested

17 farmers who slapped an officer of Gujarat Pollution Control Board(GPCB) were arrested and presented in court by local Police in Central Gujarat’s Panoli near Ankleshwar. The farmers had appeared before local police on their own.

The farmers of 13 villages in Ankleshwar-Hansot area whose fields are badly hit by huge amount of polluted water released by Panoli Industrial township repeatedly requested actions, but Panoli Notified Area Office didn’t respond. The angry farmers then staged dharna at Industrial township against pollution where one of the angry farmers slapped GPCB’s Regional Officer ML Shukla during the course of verbal argument.

On Shukla’s Police complaint, the Ankleshwar Police booked Ritesh Bhatt, Ishwar Narpatbhai, Takhtabhai Vasavadiya, Bashir Ahmed, Mukesh Patel, Kishor Patel, Shaileshbhai, Tarun Patel, Pankaj Patel, Rajesh Patel, Dharmendra Varaniya, Anil Ahir, Upendra Modi, Natvar Patel, Jitendra Vasadiya and others.

The ammount of pollution is so high in this area that fishes in Vankhadi are dead and standing crop has been damaged.