VAGATOR: The law of the jungle certainly seems to apply in this part of Little Vagator. Four months ago, 200 square metres of the hillside was being razed to facilitate the illegal construction of a nightclub, but had to be stopped after a complaint was registered and O Heraldo did a series of ground reports to expose the blatant illegality.
Post these reports, the Comunidade, panchayat, deputy collector and other authorities issued a host of show cause and ground inspection notices. (see box) The illegal third party, Mangaldas Govekar, purportedly related to a powerful operator connected to the State Excise Department, even admitted that he has no permission to carry out any construction work.
The Comunidade, on November 16, issued show cause to the person controlling the activities seeking a reply within 15 days which he failed to do so. The last date was November 30. According to the Comunidade, they were still waiting for the police and TCP officials to act, more than three months since the deadline to reply to the show cause has passed.
Shockingly, while the venue is shut and under investigation, another nightclub has opened in that very same spot. When the O Heraldo team visited the property site, it found that a new gate had been installed with the access road leading to the site illuminated. The beautified entrance has a board mentioning “ORIGENS jungle club”.
Even before ‘Origens’ came into existence, according to locals, a New Year’s party was held after the hill cutting and construction work was stopped at the same place. This was not a one-off thing and became a trend where in a venue sealed due to illegal activity allegations, a series of parties were held with impunity.
The Comunidade committees always claim that they are working to protect the land owned by the Gauncars, but Anjuna Comunidade appears to be doing just the opposite as it has shown the least interest in initiating action against those who have encroached upon the comunidade land and have started developing the areas without the consent of any authority including Anjuna Comunidade.
