Narendra Modi's visit: Overzealous cops harass hotel guests late night

CHIKMAGALUR: Guests at various hotels in the hill station town got a taste of police high handedness on Friday night when police knocked on their doors close to the midnight hour, waking them from their sweet slumber.
It was a rude shock to many guests who were woken up by the repeated buzz of the calling bell by the overzealous Chikmagalur police who were conducting security checks ahead of visit of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s visit to Chikmagalur on Sunday.
The team of three police personnel led by Assistant sub inspector Satish KS gave no satisfactory answer to the correspondent for waking up guests at 11 pm. The ASI noted down the details from the guests - their names, purpose of visit and mobile numbers - though he had a detailed list obtained from the hotel staff. When questioned about the time and purpose of their visit, the ASI was rude: We have been told to conduct this exercise by our seniors and we are doing it. You expect us to work 24X7 but question the time of our visit?
The ASI was in no mood to spare even single woman guest at a room wanting her to open the door and answer his queries face to face. When this correspondent told that this would be brought to the notice of his superiors and the election Commission and it should be done before 10pm, he said: You can go and complain at Vidhana Soudha. Another team will come after 12 midnight.
In fact on Thursday night, a team came at 3am and they were taken to task by former CM S M Krishna’s chopper pilots, who had come down for site inspection to Chikmagalur.
Nimisha and Deepika from Bangalore, who had come to assist an auditor, said they were shocked. ``This is something happening to us for the first time and we were scared,’’ they said. Srinivas, auditor, did not find anything wrong with the police action saying this was poll related to ensure security.
A hotel staff said it was an embarrassing situation for them since they were held responsible by guest for this unearthly intrusion of privacy. Mangalore City Police commissioner, who is also the range police commissioner, R Hithendra told TOI: It was wrong on the part of police personnel to inconvenience guests and conduct such an exercise after 10pm without valid security threat.
He assured that proper instructions would be passed on in this regard.