Girl to bin Pocso suit against bus conductor in language row

BELAGAVI/KOLHAPUR: A girl who had filed a

sexual harassment case

against a

bus conductor

under the Pocso Act in the

Belagavi

ticket row over language last week, sought on Tuesday to withdraw the complaint.
Her parents insisted they "too are fans of

Kannada

" in a bid to ease the flare-up across the border.
The bus conductor, who had requested the girl and her friend to speak in Kannada while buying tickets, was assaulted, allegedly by a group of

Marathi-speaking

people in the border district.
Following the incident, both Karnataka and Maharashtra had suspended bus services. The cross-border Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation bus service continued to be affected on the fourth day after an MSRTC driver was harassed by pro-Kannada activists in Chitradurga district, Karnataka. Maharashtra transport minister Pratap Sarnaik said govt is considering deploying police personnel on buses and resuming MSRTC services to parts of Karnataka as passengers are facing inconvenience.

Karnataka's govt, meanwhile, transferred police officer Gururaj Kalyanashetti from Belagavi's Marihal station on charges of dereliction of duty and registering a Pocso case without conducting a preliminary inquiry. Manjunath Nayak, an inspector with the city crime records bureau, has been brought in Kalyanshetti's place.