MARGAO: Tension prevailed in Colva market area after a shop owner complained that the sarpanch and two other panchas entered commercial establishments and harassed some traders beyond the panchayat working hours. 

Shop owner Vagaram Devasi filed a complaint before the Colva police accusing the sarpanch and the two panchas of trespassing into his shop and threatening him.

Devasi said that Sarpanch Anthony Fernandes and Panchas Johnson Coelho and Dylon Gracias trespassed into his shop and started abusing him with filthy language. 

“They told me that I don’t have any licence and he would shut down my business and closed the shutter from outside of my shop and thereby wrongfully restrained me inside the shop,” the trader alleged.  “The owner of a toy shop Anil Bandodkar, when asked the sarpanch whether he could enter his shop after office hours and that too without a resolution; and whether he could close the shop without the secretary and police, the Sarpanch said that he has all the right to do so at any time,” the trader said.