He has, at the very least, not attempted a generic overhaul of the state police and has handpicked big ticket and key projects to devote his energies to, allowing the rest of the system to take care of the day to day running. Foremost among this is action against the drug and prostitution lobby. To that end, he deserves our salutations.
Having paid the deserved homilies, here is one fundamental he has either got completely wrong or is deliberately ignoring. Let us pick his weekend remark aimed at being Mr Popular. “I will not let Goa be Udta Punjab”. To the uninitiated Udta Punjab, a recent Hindi movie, revolves around the growth and mushrooming of drugs and how it affects and takes innocent lives. Goa’s DGP promises not to let that happen in Goa. Before we drive home a few home truths to point out that Dr Chander may be bolting the stables a good five years after the horses have bolted, a few of his other points need to be placed on the table for a complete analysis “If people have any information about drugs then urge them to share it with the Goa police”. Nice words indeed, but we wonder if he made these remarks at the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in Wonderland with March Hare, the Hatter and the Door mouse in attendance. For the record this was a function organised by the Anti- Narcotic Cell on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
The fundamental flaw of asking the people of Goa to trust the entire force with information given about drugs is too obvious to be underlined repeatedly. The nexus between police officials at various levels with drug syndicates and lobbies has emerged again and again. A House Committee was set up to investigate the police drugs criminal nexus. The report of the Mickky Pacheco committee has not been accepted by the House. But it is important that the report should be looked at and placed on the floor of the House and debated. It is far too simplistic to ask to hand over information about the drug trade to the police. The police stations of Saligao, Calangute, Anjuna, Siolim, Mandrem and Pernem need no public inputs to know that several homes across the belt are taken on rent by Nigerians and other Africans who are involved in the narcotics business. If there is a synergy and relationship between the Narcotics Control Bureau, which actually does a lot of quiet investigative work, and the Anti-Narcotics cell, it will be clear that narcotics available in the Goa market far outstrips drugs seized and kept in the “malkahna”.
Secondly, expecting the common man to be a whistle blower who passes on information to the police, is borne out of a misplaced sense of camaraderie between the police and the public, against a common enemy – the drug lobby. The man on the street is highly unlikely to crusade against the availability of drugs. This is because, he either lives in the drug belt and doesn’t want to take on either the drug mafia or those cops he knows are involved with them. Or else he benefits from the business generated out of drugs. The DGP must understand that the buying and selling of drugs takes place in concentrated pockets. Here the traditional common locals have become marginalised as the weight of big business of hospitality, night clubs and restaurants have become the playground of the drug trade.
The DGP’s appeal to the man on the street, in these circumstances, is charitably naive and uncharitably silly. Drugs go into the hinterland of Goa through the north and deep south coastal belts. So while consumers have started growing in Sanguem, Curtorim, Quepem or Ponda and in educational institutions, the trade is elsewhere. So you may pick up students doing drug parties in colleges, but that will not eradicate or quash the trade. The trade of drugs into Goa from Latin America and Africa, and the export of Indian drugs moving into Goa from Himachal Pradesh and elsewhere, is what no force has managed to control for well over 15 years. And there’s an army of pushers and peddlers, both Indian/Goan and African, who form the next line of foot soldiers. So it’s not really a teddy bears party that the DGP is trying to bust.
And finally, if he doesn’t want Goa to be Udta Punjab, does Dr Chander have a plan to keep the powerful and the politically linked from controlling the levels of the drug trade in Goa. If he has seen Udta Punjab, he will know that it was a “Minister” who ran the drug factory which received consignments of opium though a shell company.
Speeches in functions sound nice. But they are not necessarily solutions.
