VELSAO: The villagers of Velsao put up yet another united front on Thursday evening by protesting the damage caused to the fencing of a private property allegedly by the railway officials.
The village witnessed a major commotion when the labourers of the contractor engaged by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) tried to break the fencing.
What enraged the locals is that the labourers had the Goa Police officials trying to support the Railway authorities and not the locals. The residents felt that their rights were being violated through the encroachment and questioned why the police were not trying to stop the encroachment.
Finally, Thursday late evening, the landlord visited the spot and the villagers, who had gathered in large numbers, showed him the damage done to the fencing.
RVNL representatives tried to show the site plan on their mobile phone, which was rejected as too small by the landlord.
He later suggested that he could meet them on Friday at 10 am along with his property documents to prove his property ownership rights, which was agreed by the RVNL, the villagers and the police. The meeting will take place at Bhauteakod’de, Primeirovaddo, Velsao.
The villagers demanded that RVNL bring their title documents to prove their ownership rights, failing which all their construction activities should come to a standstill.
Sarpanch Maria Diana Gouveia, panch Francis Braganza, ex-panchas, ex-sarpanch and Goencho Ekvott (GE) Founder Orville Dourado Rodrigues were present.
Earlier, the villagers protested the destruction of their village nullah at Primeiro Vaddo where the RVNL has allegedly felled age-old trees and have been constructing an embankment, which they claim will cause severe flooding in the area.
The Velsao, Pale and Issorcim panchayat has cleared the undergrowth to expose the box culvert and the nullah on the eastern side of the road.
On Monday, the Velsao panchayat had issued another letter to RVNL. This was in follow up to the stop-work/show-cause notice it had issued earlier wherein the panchayat issued a second warning to the Railways of taking legal action against them if they continued the work.
In the letter, the panchayat cited various sections of the law that had been violated along with details of the damage caused to the village.
On February 11, there was a public protest at the site, following which a four-day ultimatum was served on the Mormugao Deputy Collector to stop all such construction activity, failing which the villagers will launch a morcha on the authorities to seek justice.
It may be recalled that there have been repeated confrontations between the railway officials and the locals over the ongoing double-tracking work.
The dispute is over the manner in which the railway officials have allegedly encroached upon private land to build embankments. Locals have on multiple occasions pointed out that the land in question does not belong to the railways.
Against that backdrop, the landlord installed posts to safeguard his land.
