KISHORE AMATI
PANJIM: The buzz on social media triggered by the violent mining protest that held the capital city to ransom on Monday, refuses to die. As videos of the unjust and uncalled for means of protest started surfacing online, netizens unleashed their fury on the protestors calling out their brazen and rowdy behaviour.
The collage of two pictures in particular, showing Vasudev Yadav alias Gabbar hailing from Pali village, clicked by lensman Ganesh Shetkar of the Lokmat Marathi daily, went viral. The collage shows a frozen moment where Yadav is seen assaulting a hapless commuter, in the early hours of the protest. Next to the picture, is another one of an injured Yadav roughed up by the police. The collage also did well to rubbish the false claims that Yadav made in a video claiming that he had come to Panjim for his ‘personal work’ and that the Maharashtra police assaulted him in an unprovoked manner.
Another video that is doing the rounds is of protestors harassing the commuters stuck in the traffic jam, snatching the keys of their vehicle, and asking them to join the protest. Interestingly, the person caught in the act in the video was also seen standing next to Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral as he was being interviewed by a local channel. While an obvious connection cannot be drawn, an inference certainly can be.
Now with about 48 hours into the shameful incident, the protestors are receiving a lot of flak due to their clearly perceived goondagiri. As a result, the protestors are crying foul, stating that those who resorted to violence are not mining protestors but goons that are giving the protestors a bad name.
But thanks to electronic and social media, the above examples are just a few of the many evidences caught in the act, that quash all these false claims to defend the mining protestors.
