TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Even as the State Legislative Assembly House committee on police-drug nexus has indicted former Home Minister Ravi Naik and his son Roy, the committee member and BJP legislators Vishnu Wagh and Michael Lobo have submitted dissenting notes on the report.
Wagh has even given a ‘clean’ chit to the persons indicted by the house committee report submitted to the Assembly
Both have also not signed the report and their dissent note to speaker Rajendra Arlekar and the chairman of the Committee Francisco Pacheco claiming that ‘they do not agree with the comments, findings and the observations made in the report’.
Wagh in his detail dissent note said that the documentary evidence is not enough to pinpoint the goals set out before the committee.
“There is no direct evidence to implicate former Home Minister Ravi Naik in the case as no proof of his involvement in suppressing the police investigation has come to light,” Wagh said adding, “The recommendation to expel Naik from the membership of the House from backdate is not only hypothetical but also laughable.”
“The report is purely based on assumptions and presumptions,” Lobo said in his note adding that a detailed report on reasons for his dissent in the next session of the Goa Assembly.
Speaking about Roy Naik’s involvement, Wagh said ‘it is difficult to deduce that the person ‘Roy’ mentioned in Lucky Farmhouse’s revelation is the same Roy Naik who happens to be the son of former home minister, since no steps have been taken to bring Farmhouse to Goa for personal interrogation’.
“The committee cannot assert that it is the same person as has been mentioned,” he said. Wagh said that the recommendations including filing FIR against Roy, are “preposterous and beyond the scope of the committee.”
Wagh has, however, agreed to the recommendation that a high-powered committee be constituted to carry further process of investigation in the case.
Both the BJP legislators have also come out in support of police including DGP Kishen Kumar saying that ‘there is nothing in evidence submitted before us to implicate police officers. The remarks made against them are purely speculative’.
Speaking to Herald, Lobo said that the report has literally implicated the Goa police from the top ranks to police constables. “How can we project the Goa police in such poor light when people of the State need to have some faith in the law enforcing agency,” he said.
The House committee was formed a year back to probe the links between politicians, drug peddlers and policemen have come out with the stunning findings based on evidence.
