VASCO, JUNE 16
The South Goa Demolition Squad on Wednesday morning razed six houses near MES College at Alto Dabolim.
The special land acquisition officer for Mopa Cell, which had acquired a communidade land of Sancoale to accommodate residential quarters of the Airport Authority of India, Dabolim Airport, carried out the demolition drive to raze six houses on a land admeasuring about 300 sq mts.
“They had assured us that they would not demolish our houses during the monsoon, but all of a sudden with a large number of police force, the demolition squad razed our houses,” said an elderly woman Paridevi Patel, with tears rolling down her eyes.
“Human inhabitant was rare on this hillock, as my family lived in fear when we build the small structure about 45 years ago when we had migrated from Banaras, Uttar Pradesh,” said Patel.
Her ration card, electricity bills, water connection and other documents suggest that her family lived for over 35 years on Sancoale Communidade land.
“Where will we go with our children and woman in the pouring rain,” asked Patel.
Sources said: ‘Though the Patel family was served with an evacuation notice a month ago, but they failed to evacuate it.”
“We knew they will demolish our houses, as the land was not ours, but one top officer in Panjim had agreed and had given an assurance that our houses will not be demolished during the monsoon,” said Neelam, daughter-in-law of Paridevi.
“They have even razed down a temple mercilessly,” added Patel.
She said they had made an effort to search rented houses when the notice was served, but in vain because their joint family is quite big in number and they have cows and goats with them, thus people in surrounding Dabolim area refused to rent their houses.
Chicalim Sarpanch Raul D’Costa said since the land was acquired and family members had agreed to shift, the authority should have waited till the monsoon.
