VIBHA VERMA
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PANJIM: A parallel investigation to the CBI’s ongoing probe launched by the Goa Government appointed House Committee into the police-drug mafia nexus in the State has hit a roadblock in the form of the “uncooperative attitude” of Goa Police, Nuvem MLA Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco has told HERALD. Pacheco, who heads the Committee, cited this as the reason for the delay in the Committee winding up the inquiry and submitting its report.
The report initially was to be finalized within a month of the House Committee being constituted but the deadline was extended to December-end 2012. Later, the Committee’s report was to be presented in the Legislative Assembly before the Speaker in the just-concluded winter session of the House in the last week of January, but that too was not to be.
Pacheco (Mickky), when asked the reasons for this delay, said: “The police are avoiding giving us certain official papers and documents crucial for the inquiry which we had asked for… Nothing (of what we had asked for) has come to us so far…Case diaries, day-to-day schedules (of police officers) and other information that is required which was forwarded to the CBI when the case was transferred to it have not come to us,” Pacheco asserted. The Nuvem MLA added: “These documents were handed over to CBI by police and we want copies from the police department itself. But we are now told no copies of the documents submitted to CBI are with police… I am clear I will not ask any investigating agency apart from the police for these documents since they only submitted them to the CBI.”
The Committee has now summoned the Director General of Police Kishan Kumar and other senior officers on February 18 to seek an explanation and to insist on the documents being provided. “The police are avoiding giving us certain papers…We did get a set of documents earlier but more are required for the purpose of an unbiased inquiry,” he added. Pacheco in an earlier interview had said that there were 10 boxes with 10,000 documents apiece for the Committee to go through.
The government had constituted the Pacheco-headed committee during the monsoon session of the Assembly on August 3, 2012 following several complaints of a police-drug mafia nexus in Goa and allegations about the involvement of Roy Naik, son of former Home Minister Ravi Naik among some other politicians. The Committee was also asked to look into the smuggling out of seized drugs from the anti-narcotics cell godown and being sold in the open market. In a court deposition, Fiona Mackeown, mother of slain British teenager Scarlet Keeling Eden, had accused Roy and Ravi Naik of being involved in the drug trade. Swedish model Lucky Farmhouse, former girlfriend of Israeli drug dealer Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, had also accused Roy of being a part of Goa’s Israeli drug mafia in her written deposition to the CBI.
Over a dozen Goa Police officers including an inspector and two sub-inspectors are among those accused of having links with the drug mafia.
