A police force keeps watch on the protesting locals at Nagzar-Pernem on Monday. Captured by : Nivrutti Shirodkar
PERNEM
Tension broke out during the Mopa Airport road survey work for the second time in as many months, when violent clashes erupted between locals and police at Nagzar-Pernem on Monday. At least 16 locals and police are reported to have been injured in the clashes.
While locals placed road blockades at Tulaskarwadi-Nagzar and set ablaze some obstacles to block the government team from proceeding to conduct the survey work, the police resorted to a lathi-charge on the people and some locals retaliated by hurling stones at the police.
According to reports, trouble broke out when a huge police force was deployed at Tulaskarwadi on Monday for a survey by a government team for the proposed Mopa Airport road.
This sudden deployment of police and the presence of the government survey team angered the locals and many of them staged a flash protest by squatting on the road, besides placing obstacles on the road and setting some of them ablaze.
The police tried to get the women protestors to disperse from the site, but they refused to leave the site. The police then detained some protestors and began sending them in a police van, besides resorting to a lathi-charge on the protestors.
The further enraged the locals and some of the them began hurling stones at the police. In response, police intensified their lathi-charge on the protestors.
At least five locals, Sandeep Salgaonkar, Mahesh Tulaskar, Dipali Tulaskar, Rupali Tulaskar and Snehal Tulaskar, were injured in the lathi-charge, while about 11 policemen and policewomen, Abhijt Gaude, Rohan Naik, Saidas Bordekar, Nagraj Patil, Subodh Salgaonkar, Mayuri Gawas, Samruddhi Mapari, Afreen Nadaf, Venilla Naik, Nitu Naik and Prashanti Naik, were injured from the stones hurled by the protestors. All injured persons were shifted to the government hospital at Tuem-Pernem and received treatment.
Angry locals criticised the police for continuing with the survey in the presence of hundreds of police and about 25-30 survey officials amid the pandemic.
This is the second major clash between the police and locals who are stiffly opposed to the Mopa Airport road survey work. On February 19, clashes broke out between locals and police, with 67 protestors later arrested in the connection.
