PANJIM: The GPay saga seems to still haunt the Tiracol Coastal Security Police Station with their counterparts at the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths summoning more police personnel for inquiry, which had taken a back seat due to the Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior ACB officer said that they have summoned a head constable from Tiracol, who has been sitting pretty at the plum seat of his posting for the last nine years.
“The department normally transfers police personnel after every three years, and this head constable has been posted here for the past nine years with higher officials turning blind eye to his posting,” said the senior officer.
“He has been operating four bank accounts and has always been the ‘apple of the eye’ of all senior officials posted Tiracol Coastal Security Police Station and we have found that there were various GPay transactions in his account done by staff and others and we are trying to verify why the transactions were done,” said the officer.
The cop allegedly involved in the transactions, defended himself by saying that it was ‘confre’ money. When confronted that it was an ‘unauthorised and illegal community bank’, the constable then said that he had taken loans from his colleagues via GPay transactions.
When asked to show the payments that he had made over all these years for the loans he availed, he was tongue-tied and had no answers. Sources say that some of the small fry, who are allegedly involved, want to turn state approvers for the fear of being arrested.
“We are trying to verify if duty postings were also given to ‘blue-eyed boys’ for pecuniary gains,” said the ACB official and added that they had summoned four other constables for inquiry.
The cop even went on to add that the police station was run like a panchayat and those from the locality were given prime postings and flexed their muscles even over assistant sub-inspectors at the station.
The ACB is also trying to verify as to how the station diary was manipulated and a false complaint was registered against the complainant to harass him.
“We have got all corroborative evidence and we will definitely bring the case to its logical conclusion,” the official said and added that if need be there may be more arrests in the case.
He said, “We are also scanning the role of another senior police officer whose name also features prominently in the complaint filed by Pruthvi HN, an adventure sports operator from Arambol.”
“We are establishing the records which are already there at the police station and we are yet to record the statements of the staff there. Every day new things come to light as to what had happened at the police station and we are corroborating that with the CCTV footage to see whether the PI was present at the police station when the station diary was manipulated as the dates just don’t match,” the official said and added that they want to chargesheet the case and bring it to its logical conclusion to ensure that such incidents don’t mar the image of the State and police force in future.
Sources revealed that more complaints alleging harassment have been filed against the Tiracol Police by various water sports operators. Many of these cases were swept under the carpet by the former bosses and are likely to be revisited by the ACB
When O Heraldo questioned DySP Rajan Nigale about the developments in the case, he said, “Investigations are still on and whenever we were summoning Tiracol Police personnel for investigations, they claimed that they were busy with election duties.”
It may be recalled that former PI Vidyesh Pilgaonkar of the Tiracol Coastal Security Police Station and two other cops namely police head constables Sanjay Talkar and Udairaj Kalangutkar were earlier arrested and released on bail.
A thorough investigation by PI Melito Fernandes under the supervision of a no nonsense SP Nelson Albuquerque and a tough Sessions Court order denying bail to constables with Judge Sherin Paul directing the police to probe into the matter as it involved top officials have set the ball rolling with three arrests and many more under the police radar.
