Team Herald
SANGUEM: Irked by constant ‘harassment’ from the police and local authorities, the farmers agitating against the proposed IIT project at Sanguem’s Cotarli village on Tuesday slammed the Deputy Collector and Police Inspector for summoning them to hearings in the chapter cases filed against them, and then remaining absent for the hearings.
“If the Deputy Collector knew of his prior engagements, the police should have been informed and directed not to serve the notices to the farmers for today’s hearing. The summons were served only yesterday,” said farmer Santano Rodrigues.
He pointed out that on October 5, over three hundred policemen stood on guard from Dando to Sanguem to see that no farmer ventures out and disrupts the Chief Minister’s visit to Sanguem. As a precautionary measure, the Additional Collector, South, imposed Section 144 in the town area and Uguem village to prevent any protests or untoward incidents.
Despite the farmers assuring the police that they would keep the peace, the police issued summons to some farmers to report at the police station for inquiries.
After today’s hearing, Rodrigues along with another farmer Constancio Mascarenhas questioned the authorities as to how they permitted the conduct of an RSS rally in Sanguem, which was allegedly led by MLA Subhash Phaldessai, despite the imposition of Section 144. Rodrigues has urged the authorities to book the RSS activists who were present for the rally, just as the farmers have been booked for violating the peace orders.
The farmers have also termed the land survey conducted by the officials as illegal as no notices were issued to the farmers cultivating the area, nor were any notices pertaining to the survey published in newspapers or posted online.
