‘Police lodged FIR against Congress leaders for empathising with Melaulim protesters at Goa CM’s behest’

The Chief Minister of Goa, Pramod Sawant ordered police to register an FIR against Congress leaders for supporting a protest by villagers of Melaulim against their land being ‘illegally’ grabbed, Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar has alleged.

Terming the BJP government’s action as “cowardly”, Chodankar told NH that the Goa police is trying to intimidate Congress activists just for supporting villagers.

Residents of Melaulim village are up in arms against the upcoming IIT-Goa campus in their village for which 10 lakh square meter land has been identified by the BJP government.

Villagers of Melaulim and surrounding areas claimed that the process adopted by the BJP government for the identification and acquisition of the land is illegal and faulty.

Talking to NH over the phone, Chodankar said that Congress activists and local leaders are being targeted for opposing incidents of ‘illegal’ land grabbing. “But the BJP govt will not succeed in suppressing our voice,” he said.

Convenor of the Goa Congress, Trajano D’mello, said, “This act of showing compassion, a basic human instinct, is being crushed by this autocratic govt.”

Chodankar said villagers have been protesting against the land demarcation for the last few months. Recently, they stopped government surveyors from entering the village, following which a minor scuffle broke out between the police and villagers.

Following this, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that he would “review the situation”, while the Congress announced its support to the protest.

“This government has unjustly grabbed their land without seeking their permission. The Congress fully backs the cause of the Melaulim villagers,” Goa Congress general secretary Janardhan Bhandari said.

The Modi government allotted an IIT campus in Goa in 2014. Since then, the institute has been functioning from a temporary campus shared with Goa Engineering College in Farmagudi village, in south Goa.

The current site was identified by the Sawant government earlier this year.