Murder forces cops to guard water supply points in Maharashtra

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, June 16 

Local police stations across Maharashtra have been asked to guard water supply points and tankers after recurrent violence in the drought-hit state resulted in a murder a few weeks ago.

Amardeep Rode, a municipal councillor in the Parbhani Municipal Corporation from the Shiv Sena, was hacked to death after he intervened in a dispute between two groups of women who were squabbling over water supply from a public tap in the town. Police said Rode objected to some miscreants from his own party who had punctured the tap at another point to steal the water. In the altercation, Rode was attacked with an axe. He died shortly afterwards.

Police say disputes between villages and even between neighbours are common as people struggle over a few litres of water. “Pitched battles are being fought daily across Maharashtra as people struggle for drinking water,” a senior police official at the state police headquarters here said. Most of the time the matter ends with non-cognizable offences registered at the nearest police thana but Rode’s murder has shaken up the administration.

State government sources say canals, pipelines and village wells into which the state’s tankers pour their supply of water every few days are guarded by police. In Nashik district, the local administration has formed a special squad to prevent people stealing water from the Palkhed canal. “The administration has filed cases under the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Act those found stealing water from the canal,” a district administration official said.

Apart from farmers who use small pumps to draw water, those facing the ire of the authorities include owners of tankers who are part of a thriving black market in water, according to officials.

In Marathwada, which is the worst drought-hit area, the authorities are even providing police escorts to tankers. “In some areas people have tried to hijack tankers to their villages. There have also been instances of tanker drivers being attacked,” a police official said.

So far the Maharashtra government has deployed 6,597 tankers to supply water to 5,243 villages and 11,293 hamlets across 29 districts, according to state government data.

Some of the tanker have to travel more than 120 km each way to provide water to drought-hit villages, according to state government sources.