FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
During the week just ended, a video of a man being beaten up outside the offshore casino vessels entry point went viral. The incident occurred in the early morning, less than a kilometre away from the police headquarters, in full view of people, was caught on camera and it was only over 24 hours later that there were some arrests made. It is obvious that the police force need to step up their policing before law and order crumbles further in the State.
What occurred that Wednesday morning is nothing short of lawlessness, and this is what the DGP and his force should be concerned about rather than the infrastructure projects that are planned in the State. The persons in the video can be clearly heard saying beat him and run behind the man, who trips and falls. They beat the prone man disappear from the scene and two casino security personnel approach the victim but walk away immediately. A bus that is on the road skirts the man and continues on its way. Nobody apparently helped the man, not even possibly the person who was recording the incident on the camera. All this happened on Wednesday morning in Panjim, the State capital, on the road outside the entrance to the offshore casinos.
What is interesting is that the man who was beaten up is a tourist from Maharashtra. He is alleged to have instigated the fight, so the case that has been registered includes him too. Whoever was responsible for the affray on the street should face the process of the law, and an example needs to be set so that this is not repeated. But, the video ends when the man is still lying on the streets, yet the police had to go to Mumbai in search of him. So one has to assume that the man got up on his own and walked away. Or was he taken away from there by others? Wasn’t it the duty of the people at the spot – the two security personnel who approached the man and walked away in particular – to come to the man’s aid, or at the very least call for the cops immediately?
That apart, shouldn’t there have been any policemen patrolling the street, especially outside the casino entrances that in the current days are crowded? The crowds outside the entrances to the offshore casinos have been spilling onto the roads, forcing the Corporation of the City of Panaji to call an emergency meeting, where it was decided to prepare a plan to shift the offices of the offshore casinos under one roof, so as to ease the menace of haphazard parking so also to avoid overcrowding. If CCP can rise to the occasion with a plan – it may take time to materialise – can’t the police have some personnel on the ground to maintain law and order?
Goa’s opening up for tourism appears to have also permitted the wrong set of people to come to the State. There have already been a number of persons from outside the State arrested for illegal online betting during the IPL that has now ended. But, this is an example of a ‘free-for-all’ on the streets of Panjim that came to light because somebody recorded it on their phones and sent it around. Wonder, how many such incidents occur in the State on a daily basis. We are coming to the height of the tourism season, if such incidents are not dealt with a strong hand, it could get worse.
