A man in Odisha’s Nuapada district climbed to the top of a mobile phone tower and threatened to end his life in an unusual show of protest over the lack of a safe drinking water facility in his native village.
The presence of fluoride contents in water sourced from the tube well in Gharadhara village under the Khariar block of the district continued to wreak havoc in the far-flung village. Despite villagers’ persistent demands, the fluoride-induced water contamination issue was never addressed by the local administration.
The unsafe drinking water and authorities’ act turning Nelson’s eye to the health crisis prompted Hemant Rana to enact the popular scene from Bollywood potboiler Sholay in real life as he climbed up on the mobile tower.
The melodramatic sequence of events went on for more than an hour. The arrival of officials from the block headquarters and their commitment to solve the water problem led Rana to relent and come down to safety, said an official.
Meanwhile, the local residents are pinning the hope that Rana’s ‘Sholay’ act will yield the desired results and put to an end the fluoride contamination of water sources in the village.