A security guard naps while guarding the bust of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Aurangabad recently.

AURANGABAD, July 24: Tension prevailed in the city twice during the past few days when district magistrate Sanjay Kumar refused to come out of his chamber and meet delegates of the Dalit Panthers and the Jain community on Monday and Wednesday last.

On both occasions, the huge crowd behind the delegates resorted to an impromptu rasta roko before the Collectorate. It was only due to the timely intervention by the police that the situation was kept under control. However, this was not before a bus-load of protesters were arrested.

On Monday, the Dalit Panthers delegates arrived at the Collectorate, to submit a memorandum on the Mumbai firing incident.They were shocked when the Collector, through a message, advised them to refer the matter to a tehsildar level officer.

The Panther activists opined that the issue was serious enough for a Collector to respond and that by directing them to a tehsildar, he was only trying to humiliate them further.

Soon the group began shouting slogans and squatted on the roads around the Collectorate. It was only when ACP Aigankar relayed a message to Collector Kumar, that he agreed to personally meet the delegation.

On Wednesday it was the turn of the Jain community to be at the receiving end of the Collector's stubbornness.

The Jains were demanding the State government's attention on the kidnapping of a sadhvi in Kolhapur recently.

On this occasion the Collector directed the delegation to a Deputy Collector, on probation. Despite this being a sensitive issue and the peaceful nature of the protest, the action of the Collector in not personally seeing them was seen to be deliberately exacerbating the situation.

However, when the police arrested over 266 Jain protestors and Shiv Sena MP Pradeep Jaiswal reached the Commissioner of Police's office, Kumar became restless and agreed to accept the memorandum. But by then the Jain leaders had made up their mind to have nothing to do with the Collector.

Earlier, like the Panthers, participants in the Jain morcha too staged a rasta roko.

The Jain community was so incensed over the Collector's behaviour that in a late night meeting on Thursday, its members decided to press for the immediate transfer of Kumar.

Recently, the Collector has come under much criticism for his policy of not entertaining delegates not accompanied by elected representatives. All rules take a back seat once the ruling party MLA/MP give a nod to particular issue.

For example, when minister in charge of the district Chandrakant Khaires, at a press conference held in the Collector's chamber on July 20 declared that he wished the Collector's office stop sanction for all plots measuring less than 20 x 30, the registration office promptly implemented the `policy' from the next day. The Collector did not even wait for a government notification on the matter.

The decision led to a commotion at the registrar office forcing the collector to withdraw implementation of non-existent rule. However, it took a lot of convincing from officers at the Collectorate to dissuade Kumar from following the Cabinet minister's orders blindly, sources said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.