PANJIM: Dominic de Tiracol, the leading face of the passionate movement of Tiracol villagers against the golf course and villa project of Leading Hotels, died of a massive attack. He was in the forefront of an enduring battle against Leading Hotels, the promoters of the Golf Course and Vila project, which has taken over the village completely.
At 70, Dominic Pereira, stood firm on May 14/15, when the company and its bouncers entered his village, felled trees, threatened villagers. And when Leading Hotels moved bulldozers into his property on June 25 he hit back kicking the bulldozers and asking the international giant of a company to leave his village. What he got in return was an FIR filed by the company against him, for assaulting and threatening company officers, a charge which still remained as he succumbed to his heart attack.
On the night of May 14, when bulldozers from Tiracol burst into the village with around 50 bouncers, Pereira along with several other villagers raised an alarm bringing work to a halt. It was in his property that the bulldozers razed several trees and cashew plants were cut. It was this property which was literally snatched from him with his name struck off the ownership documents in a mysterious manner. These were the tensions he went to bed with each night, as he gave up his interests for his beloved Tiracol
“My name was removed from the Form I & IV without any notification and so we had to give proof from previous years. The forest has asked me to give all proof of my land ownership. I am the tenant in this property and I will not give up my right to it. I have cashew plantations that earn me a living,” he had said on May 15 when this newspaper had met him.
But beyond the activism, he was also well known in the tiatr industry. Pereira began singing at tiatr performances in the village of Tiracol in 1964.
In 1969 he went to Bombay in search of a job where M Boyer heard him singing at a club party and asked him to join his troupe. In the year 1970 M Boyer staged his tiatr Sousar Sudorlo where Domnic sang the song Suknnem. He was also the voice behind Prem Kumar’s tiatr Jivit ek Sopon 1971 and again in Jawan in 1972.
In remembrance of Pereira, the Save Tiracol Save Goa group has decided to dedicate their Sunday musical protest in Tiracol to Dominic de Tiracol.
His death, of a heart attack, came when his heart was heavy at the injustices meted out to the people of Tiracol and comes at a time when the tide is turning against Leading Hotels and the government, as the judiciary is stepping in to correct the wrongs that have enveloped this controversial and anti-people project.
