MARGAO
Police played spoil sport at an awareness programme organized by Goencho Ekvott at Agalli-Fatorda on Tuesday evening, with the men-in-uniform stopping the organizers from using loudspeakers for want of permission.
Unfazed by the police action, Goencho Ekvott went about the awareness programme sans use of loudspeakers, as young children from the villages of Bogmalo, Chicalim, Cortalim and other places staged a dance as a medium to convey a message loud and clear to the government to scrap the ill-conceived projects of track doubling and coal transportation.
Goencho Ekvott convenor Creson Antao slammed the government and the Fatorda police for the action, demanding to know whether the government had any problem if the organizers had no permission to use loudspeakers for an awareness programme.
Incidentally, the meeting at Agalli-Fatorda was Goencho Ekvott’s 51st awareness program conducted across the villages and this was the first time that the Goa police have decided to crack a whip against the use of loudspeakers without permission.
Creson further demanded to know whether any loudspeaker permission is required for an awareness programme, “I would like to ask the government what exactly is the problem to use sound for an
awareness programme. Tomorrow can the police come and question a citizen for use of loudspeaker at his residence. All the communities use loudspeakers for any occasion. Going by the yardstick employed by the Goa police, will the men-in-uniform stop the organizers to use loudspeakers on grounds they have no permission”, Creson questioned.
He warned the government such pressure tactics will not stop the people of Goa from their determination to get the ill-conceived projects scrapped.
That the Fatorda police were hell bent in scuttling plans by Goencho Ekvott to stop use of loudspeakers for the awareness programme became clear from the beginning after two policemen, one in uniform, descended on the Agalli grounds, even before the organizers could set the sound in place.
“The policemen questioned us whether we had the permission to use loudspeakers. When we replied in the negative, the cops told us we can hold the programme minus the sound and left”, Creson recalled.
After a dance programme staged by young children, who gave a call to the people to join the ongoing movement in large numbers, and address by Creson and Fr Bolmax Pereira, Capt. Viriato addressed the people without a mike, as he moved around the venue to make himself audible to the audience.
It was only at the fag end of Viriato’s address, that a low decibel sound system was used by the organizers.
Capt. Virato explained how the double tracking and coal transportation projects will spell doom for Goa and its people.
