MARGAO
Social activists Pratima Coutinho and Mesho D’Costa staged a sit-in dharna outside the office of South Goa District Superintendent of Police, Tikam Singh, on Wednesday evening to protest against an FIR registered against D’Costa for leading a delegation of residents from Sanguem to the PWD office to question the delay in completing a bridge project.
Both Mesho and Pratima told the media that they had come to question the SP, South, whether it amounts to trespass into government property and a crime if citizens protest and question PWD officials over the delay in completing a bridge.
The police tried to make the duo understand and withdraw the sit-in dharna, but in vain. It was only after the SP, South, gave the duo an appointment for a meeting that they withdrew their protest.
They later told the media that registering false FIRs against activists taking up causes for the public is a novel method adopted by the government to discourage people from registering protests.
Mesho told the media that he, along with citizens, had gone to the PWD engineer to question the seven-year delay in the construction of a bridge at Sanguem. “We have come to meet the SP, South, to enlighten us how it amounts to trespass if citizens come to raise an issue. The people of Sanguem know under whose behest the Sanguem police have registered the FIR against me,” he said, adding that false FIRs will not deter social activists from taking up social causes.
