PANJIM: In a major disclosure, Corporation of The City of Panjim (CCP) Mayor, Rohit Monserrate on Friday said that the CCP only charges for events and not political rallies or protests. Monserrate said that the corporation staff assumed that the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour’s (IPHB) staff enquiry was for an event and not a strike. He also said that it is in the hands of the North Goa Collector to decide on charges and not CCP.
“We do not charge for political rallies and protests, but we do charge for events. It is in the hands of the North Goa Collector to decide on charges. When the employees at the corporation were approached they had asked for charges for the ground and my guys thought it was for an event and not a morcha,” said Monserrate adding that the CCP did not take money from the protestors.
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One IPHB protestor sitting in protest at Azad Maidan, here, had stated that they were asked to pay Rs 2,500, after the permission to sit in protest was granted. He specified that this was told to them at the inward desk of the CCP.
Although, Mayor Rohit has said that the CCP staff assumed that the IPHB enquiry was for an event and not a strike, a close perusal of the application of the IPHB application shows that they had clearly stated in their letter submitted to the inward desk, that they wanted to hold a protest from April 14.
So, there is no way that the CCP staff could have presumed it was an event.
