By IANS,
Panaji : A group of journalists attending a workshop on environment issues Friday said their tour bus was laid siege to at a mine located at Rivona in Goa’s mining belt, 70 km from here.
Suparno Banerjee, spokesperson for the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which was coordinating the media workshop, told a press conference that the siege lasted nearly an hour and a half, and but they have not filed a formal complaint with police.
“We were in a bus taking around 30 journalists to the mining area in Rivona when we were halted and our bus was surrounded by locals who seemed to support mining,” Banerjee said.
The CSE official was in Goa to coordinate a workshop for journalists from Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka on reporting about issues related to mining.
“We were on a visit to the mining belt when the siege happened. There was no provocation,” Banerjee said, adding that the journalists and the resource persons were allowed to leave after police intervened.
Mining activity in Goa is temporarily banned by the central as well as state government, pending verification of documents, after a judicial commission unearthed a Rs.35,000 crore scam.