For over a decade now, Goa has tabulated its response to the presence of drug, drug dealers and the partnership of the trade and traders with politics and politicians. The template of this response has been built on the foundation of denial and decorated with smokescreens and illusions which seem to suggest that the species who deal with drugs are esoteric creatures who function in a different universe which barely comes within sniffing distance of ours.
The reality is in stark contrast. There have been, and will be organised drug gangs in Goa for decades. If an organisation is defined by a structured group of people with the same goals and objectives to fulfill the desired purpose of the organization, then the drug trade fits snugly into this definition.
When the Chief Minister Mr Laxmikant Parsekar and his head honcho of the anti-narcotics cell, the young Karthik Kashyap, dismiss this as a minor tourist centric activity, or the latter says there are no organised drug gangs, they lose the plot even before the battle has begun. The very existence of the Anti Narcotics Cell is proof that there are drug gangs operating. Does Karthik Kashyap seriously believe that drugs worth Rs 6 crores have been seized and 92 persons arrested since August last year (in his interview to a daily), with no organised network? No responsible police officer will get himself to believe – even if it sounds good in the media – that large consignments of drugs enter the Goa market, reach peddlers and are sold, with no organised activity.
Mr Kashyap’s former super boss, then Director General of Police Dr Kishen Kumar, had detailed in a series of chats with this edit writer, the operations of local drug gangs as well as foreign ones. Besides the Narcotics Control Bureau has a strong presence in Goa and has very actively tracked the nexus between drug gangs, police officers and politicians. In fact when the House committee was set up to probe this nexus, by Nuvem MLA Mickky Pacheco, the committee should have worked closely with the NCB to get much more credible information than the largely generalised – though relevant – information it put into its report.
The takeaway from this is that there is not a semblance of confusion or doubt about the presence of organised gangs and if officers of the Anti Narcotics cell or the Chief Minister of Goa, deny this, they are absolutely ignorant or not speaking the truth. The sad news is that it could well be the case of the latter rather than the former.
Their predicament is understandable. Acknowledging that there are organised drug gangs, would put the onus on cracking them down, on them. And that is perhaps what they can’t or do not want to. How else do you allow the open sale and consumption of drugs at an infamous beach shack at Anjuna, whose very existence is illegal? From sunset, onwards you see people here curl up and smoke away at random, with the smell of drugs all pervasive. As the British would say, they even have the police by the short and curlies, because no one touches them.
Around it there are myriad ‘Valleys’ “Bars” and “mountain top” sounding names of drug dens, which the ANC head, a frequent visitor to those parts, is aware of. If there is a single visible symbol that an organised drug gang works in Goa, it is the unstoppable drug dens of Anjuna, which pretend to be popular tourist shacks and nightclubs.
Moving beyond symbols, here are facts. The local Omkar Paleykar gang was clearly at war with the Nigerian drug gang which led to the murder of a Nigerian in October 2013. Can SP ANC Karthik Kashyap confirm that Runal Paleykar, Nilesh aka Notco, Pranesh also called Peter, Gourish, Shailesh and Pravin Mandrekar are not a part of the Paleykar gang or any gang?
Does he have any counter evidence or information to discount a historical fact – that a certain Sanjay Govekar, part of the start-up team of Shiva Boys and Shiva Power was not the first kinpin of syndicates? Can he deny that even as way back as twenty years ago, the Shiva boys faced a rival gang, mainly of migrants, called the Diesel Boys? And can the SP refute that he has heard of and knows of Pravin Dhabolkar who controls a steady flow of supplies to five star parties and to top of the line celebrity clientele from Mumbai?
They live in the same universe as smalltime Nigerian operators like “Monday Felix”, a footballer turned drug carrier arrested in 2010 and 2012 under the NDPS act or ‘Innocent” who wasn’t so innocent when it came to the trade or Kennedy who forged his passport to hide his real identity. He was arrested too and his involvement in drugs found.
We as always, present you with facts which is the only answer to fiction and what the Chief Minister and his Anti Narcotics chief said about there being no organised drug gangs in Goa is nothing but that, pure unadulterated fiction.
