Team Herald
MARGAO: The Parish priest of the Church of St Philip and St James in Cortalim, Fr Simon Diniz, has expressed dismay and outrage that the church property has been grabbed, and that houses are being built on it illegally.
The 20,400 sq mts of land is situated in Consul, within the jurisdiction of the Cortalim panchayat. In a public video message after his inspection of the site, Fr Diniz said that he had shown all the ownership documents to the panchayat, and also accused the non-Goan encroachers, of trying to intimidate them physically.
“Our land has been grabbed. We request the government to take immediate action and return the land back to the church. This is not right. Goa, its fields and hills are getting destroyed” he added.
He said that the property bearing survey no ‘167/2, part b’ has been sold illegally, without their permission or knowledge. “Now, houses are being built here and that too with an illegal power connection. We have told them for the last six months to stop this work but they have not listened. The panchayat also gave them house numbers before the houses were even built. There was a huge hill here which has been cut badly even though this is a No Development Zone (NDZ). Trees have been felled and the storm water drains, destroyed,” Fr Diniz added.
