Excise Minister seems to be backing dance bar owners, while Additional Commissioner of Police is in no mood to budge on his earlier verbal instructions about rules to be followed by dance bars; some women taking to flesh trade to make a living. Sheetal Sukhija reports
Excise Minister seems to be backing dance bar owners, while Additional Commissioner of Police is in no mood to budge on his earlier verbal instructions about rules to be followed by dance bars; some women taking to flesh trade to make a living. Sheetal Sukhija reports
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Excise Minister Renukacharya seems to be backing dance bar owners, while Additional Commissioner of Police T Suneel Kumar is in no mood to budge on his earlier verbal instructions.
Bleak future: As dance bars in the city have remained closed for three
weeks now, some women have reportedly entered into flesh trade to
make a living. representation pic
The flipside of the entire drama is that dance bars in the city have remained closed for three weeks now, leaving the women no option, but to enter the flesh trade to make a living.
Amidst the growing controversy, Kumar has made his stance firm. "We are not going to back down under any pressure. We have not restricted women from working at dance bars and will not budge unless the owners comply with our rules. Men who go to these dance bars to get a drink, demand entertainment. Skimpily clad women serving and dancing for entertainment is not acceptable. Bar girls deserve respect and I just want to say, Munni ko badnaam mat karo," he said.
Inter-locking horns?
Senior officials from the excise department have meanwhile revealed that trouble prevails within the excise department itself. "It is turning out to be an open war within our department itself. The minister is showing open support to these dance bar owners to allow women to serve liquor," said an official.
The official informed that the power of the excise department is limited to just providing liquor license and the department or the minister has no right to interfere with police duty.
"After bar owners give us a list of names of women employed by them, they are allowed to work. But that however, would be possible without police co-operation and we cannot afford to disagree with their guidelines. There is little we can do when the minister has given them the green signal," he explained.
Have the right
Speaking to MiD DAY, Excise Minister M P Renukacharya said that he would abide by his stance and support the Dance Bar Association.
"I don't know why people have a problem with me following the rules issued by the Supreme Court. When the highest legal authority of the country has given these dance bars permission to employ women, then why is the department creating such a hue and cry," he questioned.
Pillar to post
President of Karnataka Dance Bar association Sanjay Kochhar argued that the excise department cannot ask them to furnish any list.
"The SC order clearly states that according to rule 20 of Section 9, no one has the right to ask us for any details of our employees. We are knocking on every door while all the departments settle their
personal scores," he said.
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