Team Herald
VASCO: Verna police have registered cross complaints on Thursday, against two groups of Sancoale residents who clashed on Wednesday night, leaving three persons injured.
Since the situation in village remains tense, a heavy police force is deployed in the area to avoid any law and order problem.
According to police, the first complaint was lodged by one Samuel Williams, a resident of Sancoale that at around 8 pm an unknown person armed with sharp object abused his colleague Amos with filthy language and later he along with 100 other unknown persons, with their common intention, formed an unlawful assembly and assaulted Amos, thereby causing him injuries and damage to furniture and other equipments.
Police have registered his complaint under Sections 143, 147, 504, 323, 427 read with section 149 of IPC against the accused persons involved in the clash.
The second complaint was lodged by one Mangaldas Naik, from Sancoale that at about 8.04 pm. Naik complained that 5 or 6 persons, with their common object, formed unlawful assembly and assaulted his nephew Hari Naik, causing him injuries.
The complaint of Mangaldas is registered under Sections 143, 147, 323 read with section 149 of IPC. In both the cases police have not made any arrest and further investigation to know the exact cause behind the clash is in progress.
Even as police are investigating the case to find out the cause behind the clash, the members from both the groups have different versions of the event that led to the group clash.
Some Sancoale villagers, on condition of anonymity, said that an assault on a local youth by a member of a Believers group led to the group clash.
“The assault on one of our local youth provoked us to come out on streets to protest,” disclosed a villager.
Refuting the allegations of the villagers, Valigno Dias who is a faculty members teaching at the Pastoral Training Institute (PTS) run by one Samuel Williams in Sancoale, said that a villager had come to the PTS drunk, wielding a sharp object in hand and was threatening to hurt the inmates at the institute. Noticing this, Dias said, a friend who had come to meet the account staff at the institute, acting in self defence, slapped the drunken man to scare him off from the place.
“However, a few minutes later, the same man brought around 60 odd people to PTS and 10 of whom started attacking our people without any reasons,” Dias said.
“Actually, the whole issue is linked to land grab as some local people have been eying the property which we have taken on rent,” he added.
