Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji

Panaji, Jan7: The cops resorted to lathi-charge and use of tear gas after villagers protested and prevented surveyors from demarcating land for the proposed IIT-Goa campus site.

Nearly ten cops and villagers equally sustained injuries during the clash. The injured were rushed to the community health centre for treatment. A minor boy was severely injured by tear gas.

While the villagers were protesting on Wednesday January 6, Sattari deputy collector, Rajesh Ajaonkar and his team gave the protesters five minutes to vacate the site but the villagers refused for which the police resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas which resulted in the clash as the villagers retreated with stone-pelting and setting ablaze police shields.

The villagers alleged that they were only defending themselves after the police used brute force. "The clash started when police started moving forward towards the villagers who were lying on the ground. Valpoi PI Sagar Ekoskar stamped on the chest of a woman," a villager Unati Melekar claimed.

Around hundreds of furious villagers gathered at the Valpoi police station by afternoon and demanded that Ekoskar be suspended and FIR be filed for mistreating a woman.

"The chief minister must visit Valpoi and hear us out. Villagers will not move from the main road outside Valpoi police station till our demands are fulfilled," co-convener of Melauli Panchkroshi Gram Bachav Andolan, Shubham Shivolkar said. However, by late evening the protesters left vowing to return to protest on Thursday morning.