A Ram­leela group from Fe­lic­i­ty that had to post­pone its orig­i­nal cel­e­bra­tions due to flood­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty is now fear­ful for their safe­ty due to threats by a ven­dor.

Pres­i­dent of the First Fe­lic­i­ty Ram­leela and Cul­tur­al Group Sun­dar Jookoo told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that his or­gan­i­sa­tion had to post­pone cel­e­bra­tions last week as the com­mu­ni­ty was in­un­dat­ed by flood­wa­ters. He said as a re­sult of this, the cel­e­bra­tions will run un­til this week­end.

How­ev­er, Jookoo said a ven­dor sell­ing pep­per roti, who does not live in the com­mu­ni­ty, is now threat­en­ing the group with vi­o­lence if they do not al­low him to sell on the Sa­van­nah.

Jookoo said, “This is a com­mu­ni­ty event, it’s not a com­mer­cial event, we have some ven­dors from around the vil­lage. We saw this in­di­vid­ual and he bold-faced­ly came and start­ed threat­en­ing to mash up every­thing and burn the Rawan un­less he gets to sell pep­per roti. We have con­tact­ed the po­lice and mem­bers are afraid that this man may at­tack us. This thug­gery is taste­less.”

Jookoo said some of the ac­tors are now wor­ried about their safe­ty.

“We even told him that he could ap­ply next year to sell but he in­stead has re­sort­ed to thug­gery. We have no funds to hire se­cu­ri­ty de­spite beg­ging the State for as­sis­tance,” he said.

—Shas­tri Boodan