The judgment on the Scarlett Keeling case has been delivered. The accused have been pronounced not guilty and the rest of Goa has moved on. The one who remains is her ageing mother, who inspite of being a victim of a tirade which painted her as a wild irresponsible marijuana induced parent, has taken her battle for justice for her late daughter, to the doors of the Prime Minister of India.
However, this fight for justice has a parallel story, probably a bigger one and in mother Fiona’s battle for avenging what she firmly believes was the killing of her daughter, lies the grim reality that the circumstances that led to Scarlett’s death may not have been a one off incident. The murky cosmos of shady shacks where huge quantities of drugs are stored, sold and consumed should have made Goa police curl up in shock and be spurred into dismantling them with the same urgency, as terror camps being destroyed by the Indian defence forces.
Scarlett spent her last moments in a haze of cocaine and other substances she consumed at Louis shack and elsewhere. These were found in her post mortem report.
It’s a bazaar which is always open. And it’s a busy vibrant market. The sourcing, trade and consumption of marijuana, morphine and other substances is a daily carnival across a sprinkling of notorious shacks, which run their business according to their own tourism master plan. And it’s a plan, devoid of sanctity and sanction, that has its own public private partnership. A partnership between the drug lobby and elements in the police forces and the government.
But this isn’t a new script. Hidden in the recesses of the statements of eyewitnesses and accused in the Scarlett death investigation, lies a story we all knew. But the manner in which the facts in the statements emerge, exploding out of the ocean literally as it were, is a full monty of how locally powerful shack owners, obviously with the patronage of their powerful politicians run major drug rackets in the northern coastal belt.
Here are some of the statements of recorded by the CBI in the Scarlett case, as reported by Herald.
Waiter at Louis Shack Chandru Chauhan: Placido Carvalho locally known as Shana Boy used to bring big quantity of cocaine to Louis shack. It was then distributed to Samson (main accused), Louis (owner of Louis shack) and Mahanand (drug dealer). Drug stock was buried under the ground in the storeroom of the shack. Workers like him had to deliver drugs to customers if urgently needed.
Key witness Mike Manion Masala: Samson (accused and acquitted) Placidio (accused and acquitted) and Murli Sagar Bolloju of Curlies Shack were sniffing cocaine, with Scarlett. He (Masala) also consumed hash.
There was a lip service done to pretend that the State was serious in exposing the police-criminal-drug dealer nexus. A House Committee report on this has not even been formally tabled in the House. A brave policeman Vijay Singh, former SP North, had the gumption to go into the shack belt, call the owners of one controversial shack and ask villagers to report on any shady dealings. He was stopped dead in his tracks, castigated by a minister and as it always happens, he was soon removed.
Nothing stops the police and the other agencies from picking up information and launching full-fledged, “surgical strikes” on Goa’s rogue drug shacks and eliminating them. And this should be done before the next season starts. This needs guts and honesty. At least far more than simply blaming Africans for Goa’s drug menace.
