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MLA Lobo assures amicable solution to Jeppu Compound residents-Bishop row

MANGALURU: JR Lobo, MLA, Mangaluru City South on Monday assured the residents of Jeppu Compound that efforts would be made to redress their grievance after bringing both parties on a single platform.

The Jeppu Parishioners’ Association has alleged that Rev Fr Aloysius Paul D’Souza, Bishop, Mangalore Diocese and his associates were attempting at relieving them of their lands in the Jeppu Compound.

Lobo, who paid a visit to the Jeppu Compound and accepted a memorandum in this regard from the residents, told them that he would not assure anything in particular as the issue involved two private parties and not the government. “However, I will look into what best I could do to resolve the issue,” he said asking them to “have patience”.

Empathising with them, Lobo said he believed the issue should be resolved amicably through dialogue. “I can understand your pain and the sensitivity of the issue. Every problem has a solution. We need to now find a solution to this issue,” he said.

Activist Eric Ozario, who has been on the forefront of the fight, said the victims were ready for dialogue so that they get what was “rightfully theirs”. The members of the Jeppu Parishioners’ Association have been alleging that Bishop has been asserting his right illegally over Survey Numbers 601, 611, 612, 613, 614 and 719 granted to them by the government 130 years ago.

Besides this, the locals have also placed five demands. They are: Withdrawal of the ’Quit Notice’ that the Bishop has allegedly sent to whistle blowers and RTI activists Valerian Texeira and Victor Pais, withdrawal of the Bishop’s authority over the land, consideration of the migrants as the original residents and granting them all rights as per the law, keeping the residents in loop in cases of sale of land or opening up of businesses in the compound and compensation from the Bishop for the “pain and harassment” faced so far.