Campaign to oust casinos intensifies
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 3
Aam Aurat Admi Against Gambling (AAAAG), which is spearheading a campaign to oust casinos, has decided to intensify its agitation by picketing outside five-star hotels having on-shore casinos and persuading people not to patronise them.
Maintaining that its protests against offshore casinos would continue, AAAAG in a press release said the admission by ministers to gambling was a wake-up call to all Goans. There are allegations of the tourism minister Mickky Pacheco himself being cheated by casinos, which were ostensibly set up to boost tourism, the press release adds.
AAAAG has now taken upon itself the task of collating information on how many families have been ruined since the advent of casinos in Goa. Besides looking into the issue of setting up of casinos AAAAG will record incidences of violence, cheating, etc occurring as a result of gambling, it states.
AAAAG has demanded that casinos, whether off-shore or on-shore, should be totally banned as was done in liberalised Russia and as done by Government of Goa in the case of SEZ. It will forward to the government the BBC online news of first July detailing why liberalised Russia banned casinos despite the loss of employment.
It has also demanded that the Government compensate all Goans who have lost their entire earnings to casinos. It has appealed to the people to inform on phone number 2410864 on gambling activities and assured their identity would be protected.
AAAAG is of the opinion that there cannot be double standards, one for offshore and another for onshore casinos in terms of its negative impact on society. Similarly there cannot be discrimination on the basis of rich or poor, Goan and non Goan, convenor Sabina Martins said.
AAAAG has stated that strategically one group in political parties supports casinos and another group supports the people opposing the casinos so that they have best of both the worlds in terms of money and votes.
