With the GMC, in a very rare and welcome deviation from practice confirming that the deaths of two tourists at electronic rave parties in Vagator were due to drug overdose, a vital window has been opened to get investigations done much faster.
As in all cases and this is something that doesn’t happen, the source of the drugs and most importantly their easy availability, has to be zeroed in on.
In almost every case of deaths of young people, at the venue, close to the venue of electronic dance parties or raves, or shortly after they have returned, there are a few constants. In most drug cases, or at least the ones that come into focus, if the tragedy happens during a party at a club or at a festival, the venue itself should be the focus of investigation. While party organisers shrug off responsibility by saying that the drugs are not sold or consumed at their venues, this is a false assertion most of the time. In some cases, the act of consumption, or perhaps even sale, may escape the notice of the organisers, but the hard reality is that the majority of them are not just aware but totally complicit. And this is the root of the issue, it’s very core.
The linkages between rave parties and drugs are synonymous. There is no room to be coy about this because there is indeed no room for doubt. In almost every venue of these organised electronic dance parties, where trance is played there is a synergy between the drug supplier, the peddler, the rave party organiser and at times even the DJs.
If you notice, there hasn’t been, yet, a visible all out police attack on the drug gangs of the northern belt. The police has a dossier of operatives including gang leaders of Nigerian as well as local Goan drug syndicates which operate. Let us recall that the murder of Nigerian Obado Uzoma Simeon who was killed in a gang rivalry with a local drug gang. According to the police, Praveen Manohar Mandrekar who was arrested from Assagao village for murdering Obodo Uzoma Simeon, was the gang leader of a group of eight people, who brutally killed the Nigerian.
The crack down on local Nigerians, as well as international drug dealers, including prominent ones who were arrested earlier and now roam free must commence, to know the source of drugs. This isn’t very complex. The trade and distribution of drugs cannot be controlled by multiple forces in such a small place like Goa. The few who do should be on the radar and investigated.
This is where the challenge lies. As time goes by, cosmetic investigations should not take precedence over ear to the ground investigations and getting to the root of the drug trade and nabbing the kingpins of the drug mafia. The arrests of waiters and drug peddlers, though important, will look like an eyewash if the those who control the levers of this deadly business are not identified and arrested.
The other area of investigation would be the process through which these venues got permission to play music of such high decibels and that too in the open (in some cases). It is almost a given that trance parties and drug consumption go hand in hand, only in open venues. Many of the party venues have permission to simply run a restaurant. How that gets converted to a full-fledged EDM party venue is anybody’s guess.
So the drill is pretty cut out. Get the ground level drug operatives, then examine the role of party organisers and expose and zero in on their activities and don’t leave the DJs out of the ambit of probe, and thirdly go for the big drug syndicates and their drug lords. It is only then that all the rhetoric of the war on drugs in Goa, will have real substance.
