During my grandfather’s siesta the neighborhood would experience silence, open doors and windows without grills of the ancestral house would usher in the breeze and despite that, that generation even in mid 80s in Maina-Curtorim seldom heard of robberies. That era and generation has vanished and is replaced by crowds and congestion.
Brutal attacks: The bygone aura of a carefree past resonates like legion. Goa’s Liberation changed equations, opening floodgates for India’s masses curious to check Nehru’s ‘ajeeb lok’.
Goans are living in shock. Increasing crimes levels have instilled a lingering fear with news flashes of land besieged, children molested, women raped and murdered – in an almost lawless Goa, clueless Police grope in the dark.
From the Scarlett Keeling to Nigerian issues, Vasco minor rape to illegal mining, successive governments of national parties have ingeniously subverted laws, boldly raising the bar of criminals and tainted politicos in tandem with a questionable police force within a loopholed administration.
Christmas eve reverberated with the Davorlim dacoity, the Margao Police could not make any arrests even after 24 hours and were scooting with the victim’s car, the thieves abandoned it at Margao’s fish market. The police exhibited no competence to nab the culprits who are still at large.
Hardly had the jolt lightened and Goa’s festive season over, there came news of another robbery – this time at a Nuvem bungalow of Raj Gomes – who commands respect among Goa’s elite circles being the high profile Secretary of Salgaoncar FC and his consistent, exemplary work in Goa’s football history as a pioneer of planning processes in organizations like the Goa Football Association.
That the Gomes lawyer son-in-law’s presence inside didn’t deter the thieves exhibits stark arrogance. Goods can be recovered or replaced, but the attack on innocent residents while sleeping is brutal and exposes a serious systems failure.
Consistent lethargy and incompetence from the state’s home department, even during Manohar Parrikar’s time, in tackling crime has emboldened even the pettiest of thieves.
In the Nuvem case, the Maina-Curtorim cops were unsuccessful to ascertain the crime spot quickly thereby exposing chinks in the armor, specially when technology is available for the asking.
Will our Government get its act together to win back people’s confidence in the law and order machinery? Will the Goa police shun its image of lethargy and incompetiveness and prove that they are capable of protecting us? May 2015 bring in the change we wish to see.
