Wary villagers guard IAS officer DK Ravi’s grave to stop government ‘tricks’
Tumakuru: Fearing that the state government may do anything to hush up matters, the villagers of Doddakoppalu where he grew up are guarding the grave of the deceased IAS Officer D. K. Ravi round the clock.
Though police are guarding the tomb, the villagers seem to have lost faith on the government authorities and are guarding the grave 24x7. They guard the grave in shifts.
A team of 8 to 10 people, who may be relatives and friends from Doddakoppalu, Huliyurdurga in Kunigal taluk are guarding the grave to allay fear among family members that government authorities may exhume the body of the IAS officer to destroy evidence.
According to Govindaiah, who is Ravi’s cousin brother, they want a CBI investigation to secure justice for the departed soul and so they are guarding the grave themselves.
When asked who gave them the idea of guarding the grave, he said, “The government has failed to listen to the pleas and is refusing to hand over the case to the CBI. We want the case to be investigated by CBI. So, we are protecting it by guarding our beloved Ravi.”
Venkatesh, a relative of Ravi warned that they would commit suicide en-mass if the government failed to hand over the case to CBI.
Meanwhile, Tumkur Lok Sabha member Mudda Hanumegowda told media men that he would bring people’s aspiration to the notice of party president Sonia Gandhi and Digvijaya Singh, who is the Congress in-charge for Karnataka. When asked why Siddaramaiah was reluctant to hand over the case to CBI, Gowda said “There is nothing wrong in a probe by the CBI when they loss faith in the state government.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of villagers from Kolar, Mandya, Tumakuru, Bengaluru and, other districts are visiting the house of D.K. Ravi’s parents at Doddakoppalu and performing pooja at the grave.
A college student Ramesh from Kolar visited the village to console the relatives of Ravi saying, ‘Ravi is not dead, he is alive and still among us. We can’t forget his words of advice to us that we should come up in life.”
