MARGAO: Following their meeting at the Cuncolim MLA Rajan Naik’s office, locals from Cuncolim and Ambaulim met Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar and placed their demands before him. Upon not receiving a satisfactory response, the family of the deceased accident victim has decided not to take the body from the hospital until their terms are met.
Meanwhile, late on Friday night, South Goa Superintendent of police (SP), Shekhar Prabhudesai said that the Cuncolim accident, along with the rioting case filed by the Cuncolim police has been transferred to the Crime Branch for further investigation.
The group will be submitting a memorandum to Parsekar on Monday and have given the government an ultimatum to act on their demands till that time.
It maybe recalled that following their meeting with the MLA, they were asked to take the body and perform the last rites on the assurance that Naik would take up their demands with Parsekar and seek immediate action. On Friday evening, a group of residents from both villages, while addressing a press conference in Margao, expressed their deep reservation that despite the accident taking place on May 4, there is still no written assurance from the government.
The family and relatives of the deceased along with supporters explained how they were only seeing requests from the local MLA and chief minister to carry on the last rites, but that they were only verbal promises of taking action against the police personnel.
“We will perform the last rites and take the body only if the government and MLAs respect the life of the victim and take action,” said Dr Jorson Fernandes, on behalf of the family and residents.
The group of residents have made four demands to the government and have insisted upon a judicial inquiry into the whole incident and to book all the officers involved.
They have alleged that there has been political interference from Velim MLA, Benjamin Silva to protect the owner of the fish container and local BJP leader, Ashok Fadte whose son was part of the crowd, but was not named in the FIR lodged by the police against the mob. They further castigated the police for registering cases against select locals including those who were witnesses in the second panchanama as insisted by them and felt this was a tactic employed by the police to try and manipulate them to close the matter.
The locals have reiterated their demand for withdrawal of all fictitious cases filed against the 15 locals and 300 unknown persons. Listing out the inaction and failures of the police in view of the chain of events on that tragic day, they demanded the immediate suspension of SDPO, Mohan Naik, Cuncolim Police Inspector Ram Asre, Cuncolim ASI Ramakhant Velip and policeman Nilesh Dessai for fair and rightful judicial inquiry into the matter.
“Our final demand is for the immediate setting up of road signages and speed breakers at suitable sites to curtail the speed of vehicles” added Fernandes.
