Goa: Families threaten to boycott election after their houses demolished

Occupants of around 22 houses in Sangolda village of North Goa have threatened to boycott Lok Sabha elections after a demolition squad began to raze their houses on Friday.

Constructed on comunidade land, these people were fighting a legal battle to save their houses, however the High Court of Bombay at Goa had dismissed their petition. These locals have claimed that they have been staying here for the last 40 years.

Tension prevailed in the area after the demolition squad arrived at the site in the morning, however locals could not deter them from carrying out demolition due to the presence of heavy police force.

Speaking to IANS, BJP’s Saligao MLA Kedar Naik said that he tried to help these 22 families at the government level, but could not save their houses.

“We had also given a proposal to the ‘Attorney of Comunidade’ to pay them twice the price for the piece of land to save the houses of these families. But they didn’t agree to it. We had taken matter even to the Supreme Court, but we could not save these houses,” Naik said.

“Presently we don’t have any rehabilitation scheme, else we would have rehabilitated them. At my level, I tried to help them,” he said.

While vacating the houses, members of these families were venting anger against the government for not helping them. “We have all documents issued by the local panchayat, now what is the use of these documents when our houses are getting demolished,” they said.

“Politicians used us only for votes. Now for this Lok Sabha election, we will not vote. We will boycott this election,” perturbed youths said.