2 taxi union drivers doing ‘Dadagiri’ with cruise tourists and their bus driver arrested

Team Herald

MORMUGAO: The Mormugao police on Friday arrested two taxi drivers, who were involved in assaulting a tour bus driver outside the Mormugao Port cruise terminal on Wednesday. They are Omkar Durbhatkar and Akash Honnavarkar.

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The Taxi Drivers Union members, according to multiple complaints and representations to the police and the government, had created a ruckus near the cruise terminal and entered into a confrontation with the tour bus driver and operator in an effort to claim customers two days ago.

The international tourists who had alighted from the cruise ship docked at the Mormugao Port cruise terminal to board the pre-booked sightseeing buses returned back to the ship due to the commotion. The incident evoked strong reactions from tourism stakeholders across the State with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte warning of dealing with the matter with an iron fist.

Both the arrested taxi drivers were later released on bail.

The Tourism Minister also warned taxi drivers, “if incidents of harassment by taxi operators keep happening, the government will be forced to cancel the permit of those who indulge in such incidents and such instances of dadagiri would not be tolerated.”

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“The incident has created ripples throughout the tourism sector and we will have to face the repercussions in the days to come. We will ensure there is no repeat of such incidents,” Khaunte added

He emphasized that for future cruise ships, a counter and queue system will be made operational at Mormugao and all processes will be monitored.

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Cruise operators shocked at police and MLA trying to shift blame on them

Eardrum of the coach operator ruptured, police made charges more stringent after weak sections applied initially; politicians openly backing taxi operators, say intimidated ground agents of tour operators

Team Herald

MARGAO: The various cruise operators in Goa are still surprised and shocked that the police and Mormugao MLA Sankalp Amonkar are trying to shift the blame on them for the incident that occurred at the port.

While they were happy that the two persons that had assaulted the driver of the luxury coach had been arrested, they had to push forward with demands for serious offences to be registered. Initially on Friday evening, simple and bailable offences had been registered but then late at night, a more serious offence was added.

The tour operators emphasized that it was a serious offence considering the eardrum of the coach’s driver had been ruptured as per the medical reports.

The tour operators also questioned why the police were trying to attribute the reasons for the incident to ‘miscommunication between taxi operators and tour operators’ and pointed out that they do not have to inform the taxi drivers in advance.

“The police say all the past tours have been smooth but in reality, we always face the intimidation from taxi drivers trying to block our coaches. Only difference is that this time they crossed the line,’ said a tour operator.

He lamented that with the politicians backing the taxi drivers, so far nothing has changed but they hope the directions issued by the tourism minister and Chief Minister will be implemented fully without any ‘attempts to compromise’.