Organised crime in rag-picker assault?
On two different nights, allegedly ‘unknown’ assailants have brutally assaulted rag pickers while they were at work at the two sorting centres for dry waste run by the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP). The first incident took place on Tuesday night at the sorting site in the animal shelter located next to the crematorium at St Inez. A group of men armed hockey sticks and iron rods suddenly started to beat up the rag pickers. They even beat up the watchman of a nearby building in which some of the rag pickers hid from their assailants.
On Wednesday night, it was the turn of the rag pickers at the dry waste sorting centre in the parade ground at Campal. Here, there was no escape; everyone was beaten up. The police reached the spot only after an hour.
Not surprisingly, on Thursday, the CCP’s bins were overflowing with dry waste. Monday and Thursday are the two days allotted for collection of dry waste. The reason for the waste not being picked up was that the workers were too afraid to come to work, as neither the police nor the CCP officials inspired any confidence in them that such assaults will not be repeated.
The CCP reaction was particularly callous. “These rag pickers are not our staffers. They have been sorting out the city’s dry waste since the last three years and sell the scrap they collect,” a CCP official told the media. After the assault on Tuesday, a CCP staffer apparently informed Panjim Mayor Carolina Po about the assault. Instead of rushing to see what had happened, the mayor asked him to “submit a note”. CCP commissioner Elvis Gomes is on leave. So does it mean that action from the CCP will be forthcoming only after the note ‘officially’ reaches the mayor’s desk on Monday?
The Panjim police, on their part, have registered a non-cognisable (NC) offence under Section 323 of IPC. That’s the kind of complaint they register when two quarrelsome neighbours want to make complaints against each other! Notwithstanding this, apparently, Panjim PI Sandesh Chodankar has said that his boys will arrest the ruffians responsible very soon. We hope that he keeps his promise.
The reason for the assault, it appears, is that the CCP’s contractor who gets the dry waste segregated and then disposes off the recyclables outside the State – one Shakeel Abdul Wahab – had refused to pay ‘hafta’ to these ruffians. They told him that they wanted the money for drinks!
This demand is ominous. Only syndicates engaged in organised crime extort ‘protection money’ like this on a regular basis from businessmen. If ruffians like this are operating in Panjim, it is a sure sign that organised crime is on its way to setting up a permanent home in Goa. We hope the police realise the sinister implications of this, and act before it becomes endemic.
The contractor and/or his workers either know who the assailants are, or will be able to recognise them if caught. It is for the police and the CCP to move quickly in the matter.
That’s the way
Just a day or two after strenuously denying that he had any plans to join the Congress in the immediate future, Health Minister and Valpoi independent MLA Vishwajeet Rane did just that on Thursday. However, unlike his earlier fellow-prodigal Education Minister Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate, Vishwajeet has done everything according to the book.
He gave his resignation from the Legislative Assembly to Speaker Pratapsingh Rane, and his resignation from the Council of Ministers to Chief Minister Digambar Kamat. Within hours, Vishwajeet was again sworn in as a cabinet minister at Raj Bhavan. He even said all the right things: that he was “always a Congressman”, and would be a “dedicated worker” henceforth.
So now, ‘aaal is well’.
