Locals demand action as police nab 2 assailants
PANAJI
Tension gripped Honda village on Thursday afternoon when a pair of migrant workers from the nearby industrial estate attacked and beat up local panch Deepak Gaonkar.
Gaonkar who suffered minor injuries managed to escape from the clutches of his attackers and fled to the Honda police outpost where he reported the incident.
Later, Valpoi police arrested the two assailants -- Rahul Kumar of Bihar and Mankandar Bhakti Bhav of Tamil Nadu.
Both are said to be employees of the Chemplast company which has a facility at the Honda industrial estate.
Meanwhile, the incident has fuelled anger among the people in the village who expressed disdain and demanded a stern policy from the panchayat against criminal activity of migrants.
Some villagers who gathered at the Valpoi police station to demand action against Gaonkar's assailants, said that no one should be let off.
"It is the panchayat's duty to protect locals," one of the villagers said even as Honda sarpanch Shivdas Madkar who spoke to reporters there said that the police should act to ensure such bullying by migrants is eliminated.
The victim panch, Deepak Gaonkar, was attacked and severely beaten on the road leading to his house at Gaonkarwada. He was assaulted with fist blows on the head and face causing him injuries before he managed to escape from their clutches and run to the Honda police outpost.
Gaonkar said that both attacked him with the intention of killing him and one of them even recorded the episode on his cell phone. He also alleged that the duo who spoke in Hindi threatened to beat him up till he's dead.
"It doesn't matter to us whether you tell the PM or the CM," Gaonkar quoted them as saying during the assault on him.
Although the motive for the assault is still unclear, police sources said the panch was reportedly involved in an altercation with some female employees of the same company in which his attackers worked.
Meanwhile, the police took Gaonkar to a government medical facility in Sanquelim where he received treatment and was later discharged.
Honda sarpanch Madkar called the attack on a public representative "unfortunate" even as he expressed concern over a spike in the number of migrants residing in the village due to employment at the industrial estate.
He said, the Panchayat will undertake a campaign to survey and enumerate the number of migrants employed in factories at the industrial estate and make efforts to influence companies not to hire outsiders.
