45 Goa villagers who opposed mining stuck in jail despite bail
PANAJI: Ten-year-old Vasudev Gawde knows his family needs ₹10,000 immediately if he is to see his father walk out of Goa’s Colval sub-jail. He is worried because he knows his mother does not have the money. It is a worry 44 other families of Sonshi village in Valpoi district are sharing since April 11.
Vasudev’s father is among 45 Sonshi villagers arrested a week ago on charges of unlawful assembly and criminal intimidation. The villagers had formed a human chain and stopped the movement of iron ore mining trucks through Sonshi, located 57 km from Panaji. The protesters were demanding an end to plying of mining trucks, cleaner air, water, and basic healthcare. All 45 got bail but are stuck in jail as each needs to furnish a bond of ₹10,000, and none of the families has the money.
The families of the 45 villagers have been gathering outside Valpoi police station every day since their arrest, demanding their freedom. Amid the uncertainty, they are certain they cannot raise ₹4.5 lakh needed to get their villagers out. “They have put my father in jail. I miss him,” said Vasudev, sitting in his class in Sonshi’s lone government primary school. He wipes away red iron ore-laden dust on his school desk and shirt. Red dust returned to the lives of Sonshi’s families in October last year after work resumed following lifting of the SC’s ban on mining.
Now, the village is surrounded by mining activity and residents say they are starved of water. The man on whose complaint the police filed a case and arrested the villagers declined to comment on the developments and urged HT to speak to a senior official of the mining company. Contacted, the official too declined to comment.
Incidentally, it is the company which supplies potable water to the village. “The only well in the area dried up when the mining began. Now, we store the water supplied by the company in tankers once a day, but it is not enough,” said resident Sushila Gawde, 60. The Goa bench of Bombay HC had taken a note of the arrest of the men and sought a reply from the state government and state pollution control board within 15 days.