Borda activist recounts horror of police brutality

MARGAO, JAN 18 
As the state reels under shock over the custodial death of Cypriano Fernandes, this activist from Borda-Margao recounts the horrors of the police brutality which he was subjected to the men-in-uniform attached to the Margao police headquarters.
Laurel Abranches says the only difference between him and late Cypriano is that while the latter has died in police custody, he is still alive, but not before he had to undergo the trauma.
“I lost my child who had not even seen the day. I had to undergo kidney operation; my wife faced a big trauma in her life, all because of a false complaint and the brutality of Goa police personnel in which than SP, South Shekar Prabhudessai, PI Santosh Desai and PSI Navlesh Desai along with four constables were allegedly involved in this brutal act on me and family”, Abranches said.
Saying that he is one of the victims of Goa Police aggression motivated at the instance of a politician and his subordinate, Abranches said he was treated in the same manner as late Cipriano, but that he is still alive.
“I was picked up from my shop at Borda on a false complaint by five persons in civil clothes and pushed in a private vehicle; one of them followed the vehicle on a bike. I recognised three persons, because I was the general secretary of the United Goans Welfare Front”, he recalled.
Abranches further recounted that during the travel from his shop to the Margao Police Station, he was beaten inside the vehicle by the men in civil dress sitting next to me on both sides without verifying the actual facts.
“On reaching the police station, I was dragged from the private vehicle into the police station and made to sit down on the ground with cross legs. At my shop, when they were manhandling me before putting me in the private car, PSI Navlesh Dessai attached to Margao Police Station at that time allegedly caught my pregnant wife. She was afraid and disturbed and shortly she had a miscarriage. I had to undergo a kidney operation at the GMC for no fault of my own”, he recollected.
Demanding termination of services for the police personnel, besides rigorous imprisonment for the policemen involved in Cypriano’s death, Abranches says the law should be amended so that erring government servants are made to pay from their pockets for misusing their power and authority against common innocent citizens.