MARGAO: Margao Town Police on Tuesday arrested four persons including two relatives of a retired police officer for assaulting and obstructing a government servant from discharging his lawful duties even as Margao Municipal Council staff and councilors led by Chairperson Dr Babita Prabhudessai assembled at the police station.
One 51 year old Salvador Rodrigues who is a resident of Borda had reportedly made an application under Right to Information Act seeking information about a construction license issued some years back. The Margao Municipal Council wrote to him asking him to give the number of the construction license as without it they cannot trace the license.
This evening at around 4 pm the said Salvador accompanied by his wife, mother-on-law and daughter came to MMC and met the person who deals with RTI application Yogesh Shetkar who explained why it was difficult for them to search the many registers.
At this the quartet offered to search the registers and asked Yogesh to give them the registers to which he told them that he is not authorized to give the registers and asked them to contact his senior officers. At this stage the daughter began video recording what was happening.
Yogesh put up his hand to block the mobile with which she was recording and asked her to stop recording. However, the two other ladies rushed in and one of them besides pulling Yogesh’s collar also pushed him away.
The ugly fracas was stopped from worsening by the timely intervention of councilor Lyndon Pereira who happened to be there. Yogesh accompanied by municipal staff and the Chairperson, Vice Chairperson Tito Cardoso and four other councilors marched to the police station to register their complaint.
Dr Babita demanded that stringent action be taken against the four for obstructing a government servant from discharging his duties. “If they were aggrieved by Yogesh they could have contacted any senior official including me as I was in the office,” she said.
The four arrested are Salvador Rodrigues, Lucia Rodrigues, Sarita Valladares and Mabel Valladares all residents of Borda.
Meanwhile, Shadow Council of Margao condemned the assault on the municipal staff. “It is true that there are many shortcomings in the MMC, getting physical with the staff cannot be justified,” said Savio Coutinho.
