Goemkarponn desk
VASCO: Tense situation at Velsao after villagers confronted Goa police personnel for backing the railway authorities in the double tracking works.
The villagers of Velsao were agitated after the Verna police decided to attach a pick-up loaded with some boulders, to construct a fence of a property belonging to a woman.
As the woman’s property was adjacent to the railway line where the railway authorities initiated double tracking work, the Verna police, however, have decided to attach the boulder-laden pick-up, as it may lead to the barrier and disrupt the results of the railway authorities.
The former minister for forest and environment and former Cortalim MLA Alina Saldanha, besides Congress functionary Olencio Simoes and several other villagers, assembled at the site at large and opposed the move of the police personnel for allegedly supporting the railway authorities rather than protecting the interest of the civilians.
Saldanha criticised the police authorities and further maintained that “The villagers who reside along the coastal belt of Cortalim would have to suffer due to the double tracking work of the railway.”
She asked whether the government has done a proper survey to find out the drawbacks of what they had planned and the people’s sufferings.
“Is the government trying to throw out the people from their own houses by way of coming up with a second track which will be laid up to 14 meters from the centre of the first existing railway track?” She asked.
Saldanha asked the double tracking is for whose benefit.
“We have been taking the issue of the houses which are affecting for several times with the government, but till date government has failed to protect the interest of the villagers,” she said.
The villagers who were gathered at the site also questioned the police officials that the railway authorities had not intimated about their plans to the local village panchayat bodies and that they had failed to obtain necessary permissions for the purpose.
It was also brought to the notice of the police that the railway authorities have criminally trespassed into the private properties and the complaint in this regard has been filed by a woman before the village panchayat body.
The deputy superintendent of police Vasco Salim Shaikh and Verna PI Diogo Gracias intervened with the agitated villagers and attempted to bring the agitated crowd under control.
Finally, Shaikh convinced the group and decided to have a discussion with the deputy collector and sub-divisional magistrate Mormugao by holding a site inspection in the next couple of days. The agitated villagers were then dispersed from the site.
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