MOPA: Mopa link road work continued on Monday despite the 24-hour ultimatum served by the farmers to the Pernem Police to stop the same.
The link road work commenced at 7 am when the contractor arrived at the site with earthmoving machinery and began to bulldoze the trees haphazardly.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Over 500 police personnel were deployed at the site.
The commencement of work before the 24-hour ultimatum left teary-eyed farmers furious.
“Usually the work would start after 9 am but today the machinery arrived at 7 am with hundreds of police personnel not allowing us to enter our land. If they wanted to bulldoze the trees they should have first put us under the earthmoving machinery,” complained an affected farmer.
“Authorities have failed to stay committed to their assurances. They were given 24 hours but before the ultimatum, the work commenced. Looks like the authorities wanted these 24 hours to complete the work. Government is harassing us by taking away our livelihood. How are we supposed to survive? What is left for our children,” farmers asked.
“Everything is destroyed. What are we supposed to eat and what are our children supposed to do? The authorities should have told us that they are not going to stop; we would have sat at the site. We have been fooled by the government. What kind of development is this which is being done by destroying the lives of the people? We don’t want such development”, they said.
Meanwhile, Pernem Mamlatdar Anant Malik, Pernem PI Vikram Naik and land acquisition officer Chandrakant Shetkar were also present at the site.
The mamlatdar said, “I am here only to look after the law and order”.
