DNH villagers, panchayat members oppose programme by district admininstation

The residents and the elected gram panchayat members of Randha village in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli (DNH) on Friday opposed an awareness programme organised by the district administration and demanded that officials booked in connection with the death of MP Mohan Delkar be removed first.

Following the protest from the villagers, the administrative officials cancelled the programme.

The revenue department officials had organised an awareness programme — ‘Prashashan apke Dwar’, on March 12 at a government school at Randha village, which is around 20 kilometres from the Silvassa, the headquarters of DNH.

The programme was arranged for villagers who wanted to get a copy of any land record or those who wanted to submit any forms related to land or any government related works.

Mamlatdar Tirathram Sharma from revenue department along with other district administration staff were present for the program.

DNH district panchayat president Nisha Bhavar along with Silvassa municipality member Sumanbhai Patel, Randha village sarpanch and gram panchayat members showed black flags to the district administration officials and opposed the programme.

Bhavar told the Mamlatdar that the panchayat members with support of the DNH district panchayat had decided to oppose such programmes organised by district administration till those officials mentioned in the FIR over the death of late MP Mohan Delkar are removed from their posts.

The district administrative officials had to leave the spot, with police protection cancelling the programme.

Bhavar told The Sunday Express, “Delkar was a tribal leader and everybody loved him. Why the district administration had organised such a programme even after knowing that there is anger among the people, as the accused mentioned in the police FIR lodged with Mumbai police are still not arrested and even they are not removed from their posts.”

Mamlatdar Sharma said, “We got orders from the district administration to organise the programme. The people of Randha village were angry, including the elected leaders and they did not allow us to organize the program. Following the protest from the villagers and elected representatives, we reached the village with police protection, to prevent any untoward incident. ”

Delkar, an MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was found dead in a room at Hotel Sea Green South in Mumbai’s Marine Drive on February 22.

The Marine Drive police had registered a case against DNH Administrator Praful Patel, District Magistrate (DM) Sandeep Singh, then superintendent of police (SP) Sharad Darade, Deputy District Magistrate Apurva Sharma, Sub-Divisional Officer Manasvi Jain, police inspector Manoj Patel, DNH Law Secretary Rohit Yadav, BJP leader Fatehsinh Chauhan and Dilip Patel (Talathi).