The main players

Atanasio Monserrate, present St Cruz MLA 

Atanasio alias Babush Monserrate, initially a supporter of Somanth Zuwarkar got elected to the Legislative Assembly for the first time in 2002 on the UGDP ticket. In 2003, he joined the BJP after splitting the UGDP and resigned in 2005 after being stripped of theTCP portfolio, allegedly for growing corruption in the department. Monserrate resigned from the Cabinet and on January 29, the same year, withdrew support to the government. He won the ensuing bypoll on a Congress ticket.

In 2007, though he was given the Congress ticket, but withdrew his Congress nomination at the last minute – ostensible as his wife was not given a ticket – and again contested on the UGDP platform and won the Taleigao elections. A couple of years later, he was declared an unattached member by his party high command and was inducted in the Cabinet after Dayanand Narvekar was dropped. In 2012, just before the elections he joined the Congress, and was given the St Cruz ticket. 

Jennifer Monserrate, present Taleigao MLA 

Jennifer Monserrate romped home from Taleigao constituency in 2012 on a Congress ticket. It was an election when the Congress was decimated in the State, with family raj being one of the key election issues, but this did not affect the Monserrate couple. She was earlier a Taleigao panchayat member while her husband was the local MLA. She was one of the persons who had gone to the police station after her son had been picked up by the cops in the aftermath of the police station attack. 

Tony Rodrigues, Former CCP Mayor 

Tony Rodrigues accompanied Monserrate to the police station and was manhandled and arrested along with his then friend. Was part of the Monserrate panel controlling the CCP and even the Mayor before falling out with his one time friend.

Ravi Naik, The then Home Minister

The Home Minister denied that he was part of any revenge action on his own party MLA after the attack on the police station. However, he has been known as a tough minister as his actions against goons in earlier tenures proved, before the escapades of his family members curtailed his style of functioning.

Sudesh Naik , The then PI, Panjim Police Station

Sudesh Naik was pushed into the controversy after he was taken unaware by the action of Monserrate’s supporters. His professional competence was questioned for allowing the protestors to come so close to the police station even as his opponents (the Monserrates and supporters) were baying for his blood before the incident as well as after the police action. Was in the wilderness for long till he was posted to the Margao police station as PI some time ago.  

Neeraj Thakur IPS, The then SP

The man who really took the bull by the horns after the police were initially found lacking as the mob trampled on the state police’s collective pride smashing and injuring police personnel in the premises of the police station. Neeraj Thakur was described as the Singham of the Goa Police, he is said to have ordered strict retaliation as a means of showing that nobody could take the police so casually and get away with it.