Lawyer and human rights activist Vinay Sreenivasa filed a complaint with the MD of Bengaluru Smart City Ltd. alleging that a company it had contracted appeared to be practising manual scavenging.
Mr. Sreenivasa, on Monday, put up clips and photos of three men entering a pit with no protective gear and manually emptying it. He tagged Smart City MD Rajendra Cholan, city Police Commissioner Kamal Pant, and the BBMP in his tweets. In a tweet to Mr. Cholan, he said, “As an officer do you not know the law? That manual scavenging is not allowed?”
In another tweet, he said that the company had been hired by BSCL. “They told me "some castes are meant to clean. No machine can clean this sewage block" . @CPBlr pls file a case against the accused under atrocities act,” he tweeted.
He submitted a complaint to Mr. Cholan. He said that when he spoke to the contractors, they said that machines couldn’t clean the clogged manhole, and hence they were using labourers. “If the water was indeed sewage, it is an offence under Section 7 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act,” he said in his complaint.
