PANJIM, JULY 29
A legislative panel of the Home Department has recommended that the touted police-drug cartel nexus probe be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
This is even as the government is determined not to hand over the probe to the Central agency.
“It is important that such nexus is nipped in the bud in the interest of the next generation. We, therefore have no hesitation to recommend that the drug peddler/police/politician nexus needs to be cracked down on priority and therefore the case be handed over to CBI for investigation,” the committee report headed by the leader of opposition Manohar Parrikar read.
It has opined to ‘properly train’ the Crime Branch to handle cases for better investigation reports and during trial proceedings to increase the conviction rate in general and criminal rate in particular.
The ad-hoc committee report tabled on the floor of the house alleged that the police were not interested in cracking the nexus. “In fact, the committee gets a feeling that the police are more interested in protecting their own colleagues. The investigating team has done no efforts to gather evidence in the famous case also known as Atala-Ashish Shirodkar case,” the report laments.
Seven tainted police officials have been suspended for their alleged links with the drug mafia. They were arrested on charges of corruption and conspiracy and released later.
Alleged drug peddler Yaniv Benaim aka Atala was recently bailed out after his arrest in the video-footage expose wherein he bragged about his connection with police officials.
While, David Driham aka Dudu who was arrested with several kilograms of narcotics in his possession in February is still behind bars.
