Glenn Costa
glenn@herald-goa.com
MAPUSA: The Mapusa police station is just refusing to get out of the spotlight for clearly siding with rapists and now goondas and re-victimizing their victims. The infamous police station, headed by PI Tushar Vernekar, under the over-all charge of the North Goa SP, has allowed two Nigerians to brow beat, threaten and intimidate an ageing couple – their landlord and lady, and even assault the landlord. And that too after the couple had filed a complaint about their strong arm tactics to the police.
John Okeae and Michael Okafor have been accused with threatening Diago and Dionizia Britto and assaulting the former last weekend. The duo had recently rented a bungalow from the couple. “We rented out the house to them some ten days ago. It was never rented out to any person before. Our financial crisis forced us to do so but we followed all the legal formalities before renting out the house. We then shifted to our old house, barely 125 meters away from the place,” Diago said.
And then their life turned ugly. A gruesome series of incidents happened on Sunday evening and the repercussions carried on till Monday. The problem arose when the Nigerians alleged that some of their expensive belongings including gold and mobile phones were stolen from the rented premises and accused the elderly couple of having a hand. According to the couple, their tenants have still not paid them a single rupee.
“They are blaming us for the theft. We don’t know whether their belongings were really stolen. They threatened to kill me, burn both my houses and even hit me on my face,” Diago alleged. “They even broke my mobile phone.”
After a lot of yelling and threats, the police were called and the old man taken to the Mapusa police station and so were the Nigerians. The Nigerians were soon let off, before the old man was. All three were told to return on Monday morning. The next morning Diago Britto landed up at the appointed hour but the Nigerian duo did not even obey summons to appear before the police. They however kept calling Diago and threatening him with dire consequences.
All the police did was the usual-register, a non cognisable offence against the Nigerian duo, with no effort made to send a team to pick them up, for refusing to obey police summons and threatening the old couple at the same time. Their excuse was even more innovative. They said that a proper complaint can be registered “only when something happens”. For the Mapusa police, threatening an old couple and assaulting one of them probably falls in the category of “nothing has happened”.
PI Tushar Vernekar, who shouldn’t be in charge of any police station after his inactions, exposed and reported by Herald, is perhaps afraid. Remember his own Chief Minister had once said, “The Nigerians are almost ten feet tall. Our policemen are afraid to take them on.” But that begs the question. Who will protect this elderly Goan couple, forced to rent out their home to these men, known for their acts of violence?
