TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: It was around 9 pm and three girl delegates who were keen to watch a movie at the International Film Festival of India screenings could not get into the auditorium. So they decided to go and get something to eat. All of a sudden one of them realised that there was a middle aged man following them through the crowded promenade. So they decided to check out their hunch and stopped. This forced the stalker to overtake them. Probably assuming that they had lost their shadow, the girls went and picked up some snacks and were walking back to the Inox. But to their chagrin they realised that the person was still trailing them. As they were debating on whether they should inform the cops, a young man suddenly appeared and asked them whether they had realised that there was somebody following them. After identifying himself as a plainclothes policeman, he told them he had observed this man following them.
At this the cops stopped him, interrogated him and warned him about his behaviour.
“The police asked us if we were being followed and we answered that we were. We didn’t know who the person was and we asked him that’s when he told us he was a cop and had observed the man following us,” Ruth Costa, a delegate at IFFI said.
As the International food festival enters the end of its first week, the cops are indeed doing a good job and the site where the IFFI is being held is clean.
This includes the overcrowded promenade which has numerous stalls put up. Along with delegates strolling up and down the walkway given that there will be miscreants who also flock to such venues, plain clothes police are keeping a strict vigil.
However, there are 15,000 delegates from all over the country. It is a festive occasion with music coming at you from two stages, youngsters are seen dancing their hearts out on the stage to hit Bollywood item numbers such as Sheela Ki Jawani and Munni Badnam Hui. Their excitement was palpable.
The CCP is getting help from students from colleges and schools who are moving with placards. “They start whistling once they see anyone throwing paper plates in the river or littering the place with tins and plastic bottles. The other volunteers come together and start whistling, which alerts the authorities who then fine them,” a tourist, who was fined Rs 200 for committing the offence said. Every stall has a bin or a box where the empty containers can be disposed. Special bins have been placed for plastic, tin, paper, metals and biodegradable items.
The fire brigade is also prominent with their new first response motorcycles.
