Goa government should have shown protesters empathy: Opposition

TNN | Updated: Apr 16, 2020, 09:09 IST

A group of Quepem residents, from where many seafarers hail, has threatened to go on a hunger strike outside the CM’s residence

A group of Quepem residents, from where many seafarers hail, has threatened to go on a hunger strike outside t...Read More

PANAJI/QUEPEM: The opposition on Wednesday condemned the police’s decision to detain family members of a few Goan seafarers for protesting outside the chief minister’s residence earlier in the day. Opposition leader Digambar Kamat and former deputy chief minister Vijai Sardesai said the authorities should have shown empathy towards the protesters instead.
“The arrest of Gina Pereira is shocking and condemnable. Hitherto, the chief minister has responded to the genuine anxiety of seafarers’ families with inaction, and now, with this insensitive act,” Sardesai said.
Kamat said that instead of detaining kin who were expressing concern for their loved ones, the state government had a duty to give the family members courage during “testing times”.
“I have written to the Prime Minister as there are 21,000 Indians on ships. I have asked him to give the issue some attention and bring them back. I also plead with the chief minister to take up this issue with the prime minister and give these seafarers relief,” said Kamat.
AAP said the issue was taken up by its MP Sanjay Singh with the shipping minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, who informed him that the government was “actively” working to bring the seafarers safely home.
Meanwhile, a group of Quepem residents, from where many seafarers hail, has threatened to go on a hunger strike outside the chief minister’s residence if the government failed to draw up a timebound plan to repatriate Goan sailors stranded on passenger and cargo ships across the world.
Protesting the state’s proposal to quarantine returning seamen in Mumbai, and at paid quarantine facilities, the sailors’ families said they would assemble 300 people for the protest.
“All other nations, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, have already rescued their seafarers,” said Monica D’Cunha, a Quepem resident. She demanded that seafarers be directly brought to Goa and quarantined instead of routing them through the “danger zone” of Mumbai.