The tiff between the villagers at Shibaroor (one of the villages affected by Mangalore Special Economic Zone (MSEZ) chaos) and the MSEZ officials took a bitter twist on Wednesday. The high packed drama turned violent with the police intervening to settle the issue. However, both parties did land up at the police station to file complaints against each other and then walked out settling the matter amicably with neither of them lodging a complaint.

The Bhu Samrakshana Vedike Secretary Lawrence D’Cunha informed that a bunch of students from Srinivas College of Social Work from Mangalore landed up at Shibaroor on Wednesday morning along with MSEZ Executive (administration and R&R) Raghavendra Holla. The group visited homes, distributed handbills on a public meet to be held on November 28 to be convened by State Pollution Control Board.

Along with the public meet handbill, they started handing over another handbill with content about R&R package. On handing the R&R handbills, the students asked the villagers to sign a book against their door numbers.
The villagers who were raged by the fact that the group was trying to disseminate to them the benefits of R&R on the pretext of public meet told the group that R&R was one topic they wished not to lent their ears to, as they had decided firmly not to vacate their lands at any cost.

As the number of people increased, MSEZ Chief Operating Officer A G Pai appeared on the scene followed by the police. Mr D’Cunha says that the discussion had wound up at the village with the assurance from Mr Pai that such incidents would not happen again.

“Soon after the crowd dispersed, we were informed that Mr Pai and Mr Holla were at Surathkal Police station to lodge a complaint against the villagers. We too landed there to file our complaint,” he said.
However, police sources informed that no complaint was registered as both the parties settled the matter amicably at the station.

Why students?

The question that the villagers are rigorously thoughtful about is ‘Why were the students involved in the issue?’
The group is said to have visited Permude on Tuesday.

The villagers feel that since all the the attempts of MSEZ to convince the villagers failed, they have resorted to stage morbid gimmicks and unfortunately students are being involved in the issue unnecessarily.

“It is a sensitive issue. Students had no background of the issue and yet they were made to advertise for MSEZ to a section of people who are suffers and opposers of MSEZ. Let colleges allow their students to make a fair study on the matter, we will support them but sending students for these kind of misleading jobs is not acceptable,” he added.