MARGAO
The Goa police on Friday scuttled Popular Front of India’s (PFI) planned peaceful protest at the Margao Municipal garden, with senior police officials refusing the permission to hold the rally.
In fact, the Margao Municipal square resembled a garrison town as the police was mobilised in strength for any eventuality as the PFI workers were scheduled to turn up for the protest meeting on Friday evening.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Margao DySP Bhushan Shivendu, Margao Police station in-charge, PI Sachin Narvekar, his Fatorda counterpart, PI Girendra Naik and a large posse of policemen descended on the pavement of the Municipal garden to ensure the protest rally does not take place as per schedule.
In fact, SDPO Shivendu was personally moving around the Municipal garden, first to tell the PFI workers to disperse from the garden and later to ensure that the PFI workers do not re-group and hold the protest meeting. Shivendu even tried to obstruct the media from taking the comments of PFI president Sheikh Abdul Rauf, before relenting after the media raised a banner of protest.
PFI president Sheikh Abdul Rauf told the media that their planned protest has been called off after the police insisted on obtaining permissions from the concerned departments. “We had applied for the permission on Thursday. But, till 3 pm on Friday, the permission was not given and we were made to do the rounds at the police and the Collectorate building. Finally, DySP Shivendu told us to cancel the meeting since we had no permissions from the departments,” he said.
Terming the police action in scuttling the planned protest meeting as a clear attempt to satisfy the political masters, Rauf said the PFI will approach the concerned departments for permission and hold the protest meeting at a later date.
The planned protest was part of an all India protest organised by the PFI to protest against the ED’s move to attach bank accounts.
