Locals question police action despite agreement over alternate route for Shiv Jayanti celebrations
Residents of Sao Jose de Areal and police come face to face at Benabhat after the cops stopped the tenant from re-erecting his fencing which was damaged on Monday.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Tension rent the air at Sao Jose de Areal again on Tuesday evening after the police and other authorities prevented the tenant from re-erecting fencing on his tenanted field at Benabhat, despite a solution worked out by the authorities on Monday that visitors to the statue of Shivaji Maharaj would use an alternate access.
Areal residents rushed to the site in support of the tenant, suspecting that the police were stopping the fencing work to pave the way for visitors to go to the Shivaji statue through the tenanted field.
Margao Sub-Divisional Police Officer, DySP Sidhant Shirodkar, Maina Curtorim Police Station In-Charge, PI Arun Desai, and Salcete Mamlatdar Vimod Dalal rushed to Benabhat-Areal. Velim MLA Cruz Silva, Areal Sarpanch Carmena Fernandes, and villagers also descended at the site and questioned the police and other authorities for obstructing the tenant from completing the fencing work, which had been damaged on Monday.
The Velim MLA reminded the police that the authorities and the parties had all agreed on Monday that an alternate access would be used to go to Shivaji’s statue at Benabhat. He wondered why the police were preventing the tenant from erecting the barbed wire fencing in his tenanted field, which had been damaged on Monday, raising fears about whether there was any plan to use the tenanted field to go to the statue on Wednesday during Shiv Jayanti celebrations.
The police team were heard requesting the tenant Cruz Tereza to keep the barbed wire fencing work on hold for a day or two, only fuelling suspicions among the locals about whether there was any hidden agenda by the authorities to allow visitors to use the tenanted field to make it to the Shivaji statue on Wednesday to celebrate Shiv Jayanti.
Velim MLA Cruz Silva told the media that the District Collector Egna Cleetus had later told the police to allow visitors to the Shivaji statue only through the alternate access.
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Collector directs cops to stick to alternate route arrangement
MARGAO: South Goa District Collector, Egna Cleetus, visited Benabhat in Areal village on Tuesday evening to take stock of the ground situation, before directing the police and other authorities to stick to the alternate access for visitors to the statue of Shivaji Maharaj as agreed upon by the parties on Monday.
After walking to the hilly terrain along with Additional Collector Srinet Kothwale and Velim MLA Cruz Silva, from the main road where the statue of Shivaji Maharaj was installed last year, the district collector went into a huddle with DySP Sidhant Shirodkar, PI Arun Desai, and Salcete Mamlatdar Vimod Dalal to discuss the situation. She later told DySP Shirodkar that visitors who wanted to celebrate Shiv Jayanti on Wednesday should take the alternate access to the Shivaji statue.
She assured the locals that the private property would not be used by the visitors to go to the statue.
Before leaving the site, the collector further told DySP Shirodkar to deploy police at the site on Wednesday as a precautionary measure.
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Locals allege developer ‘stoking’ up tension for own gains
MARGAO: Sao Jose de Areal residents on Tuesday said they are neither against the statue of Shivaji Maharaj nor any religion and attributed the root of the tension to the development of plots in the area.
Saying the people would never hurt the sentiments of anyone, they, however, asserted that a land developer, who has been trying to develop the orchard land into plots since 2012, has stoked the controversy by giving a portion of this land to install the Shivaji statue last year, hoping it would provide road access to his developed plots.
Peter Viegas told the media that for 10 years, the land developer Mehboob Makandkar has been trying to develop plots at Benabhat. The developer, however, has no access to his property due to the fields between his property and the main road.
Tenant Milages Tereza told the media that he had issued an NOC to a party over a year ago to carry material to his tenanted field through misrepresentation. “The party had asked for an NOC to allow him to take material to his property. He misused the NOC to put the statue of Shivaji Maharaj, fuelling tension in the village. We are not against Shivaji Maharaj or any religion,” he added.
