All-party team set up to solve border dispute

In the Assembly, before the chief minister could reply to a calling attention motion by Pichad, all members started shouting slogans, calling for the inclusion of Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka, including Belgaum and Nipani, into Maharashtra.

Soon after, Joshi informed the House that Karnataka Chief Minister J HPatel, during his meeting with Joshi here last year, had expressed his willingness to resolve the boundary dispute before August 15, 1998. Joshi further said that the Karnataka Government was planning to demolish a memorial of Shivaji Maharaj in Belgaum. “We will not allow them to do so in any case,” asserted the chief minister. He further said the State Government had complained to the Minorities Commission about the problem but had not received any response from it.

INQUIRY AGAINST BEED COLLECTOR: Labour Minister Sabir Sheikh today announced that a high-level inquiry will be initiated against the collector of Beed district for the alleged discrepancies in an inquiry report submitted to the Government by the latter in a case of bonded labourers. The minister made this announcement in the Legislative Council during the question hour. He was replying to a related question by Opposition members Anil Gondane and Vyamkappa Patki, who wanted to know if eight minor boys were forced to work as bondedlabourers in a certain Saibaba Bhojanalaya at Gevrai in Beed district.

The collector had submitted a report to the State Government saying the original complainant in this case, a certain Kadudas Kamble of Manavi Hakka Abhiyaan, had filed the complaint out of misunderstanding. Kamble had given a written complaint and relevant photographs to the police saying eight minor boys were being to forced to work as bonded labourers at the Bhojanalaya. However, his statement was never recorded by the collector. Patki, who had raised the question, today submitted an affidavit made by Kamble in this case. According to the affidavit, all the eight minor boys belonged to tribal castes and were brought from tribal areas of Rajasthan. However, the collector had reported to the Government that none of the boys belonged to any tribal caste and had said that they were relatives of the owner of the Bhojanalaya, a certain Dayaji Joshi.