Panaji, May 25 (IANS) A massive stir by thousands of tribals over their rights in the southern parts of Goa turned violent Wednesday when a mob of protestors torched police vehicles and damaged railway property.
South Goa district magistrate G.P. Naik told IANS that two police buses carrying personnel and a police jeep were stoned, while the rampaging mob also uprooted a railway track and damaged beyond repair a railway signal near the Balli railway station, on the Konkan Railway managed railway corridor, located 70 km from here.
Nearly 10,000 tribals from Goa's southern regions Wednesday had laid siege to the National Highway 17 for nearly three hours and blocked a New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express, demanding the state government honour constitutional rights conferred on tribals.
The road and rail blockade was carried out at three different places in South Goa district Wednesday morning, throwing interstate traffic into chaos, with long, snaking queues of vehicles on either side of the blockade points organised by the United Tribal Associations Alliance (UTAA).
"The state government is playing with the sentiments of tribals. Who do they think we are? All the Goa government does is give us empty assurances," Prakash Velip, president of the UTAA, told reporters here.
UTAA has demanded that some of their demands prompt implementation of the Tribal Forest Act. The tribal representatives have also demanded reservation for tribals in government jobs, the setting up of a scheduled tribe commission for the tribal population in Goa, which accounts for 12 percent of the entire population of 14 lakh.
UTAA now claims while the government had failed to implement most demands. Even where it has conceded, Velip claims, implementation of the demands have been short of honest.
"The government has cheated us. Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has formed institutions like the tribal welfare department and Scheduled Tribe commission, however they are toothless because there is no sanctioned staff to work there. All these are hollow promises," tribal rights leader and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Ramesh Tawadkar from the Poinguinim constituency told IANS.
"We had given the Goa government the deadline of mid May to act. But since they have failed to live up to their own promises, we carried out this agitation," Tawadkar said.