The notorious politically-backed groups hosting rave parties with loud music blaring beyond legally permissible limit was under pressure when IPS officer Vijay Singh was in charge of the north district, police sources say.
The officer, who was the Superintendant of Police North Goa for about one year only to be transferred out abruptly, had launched a string of crackdowns on illegal beach parties, loud music, prostitution rackets, drug trafficking and illegal stay of foreigners. Singh had openly criticized the functioning of the Anjuna Police Station for failing to curb illegalities, during a police-public meeting in 2012. He set an example by entering into a beach shack alone in plain clothes to check on how an infamous shack – depending on which side of the fence you are on – Curlies had blocked public access and got the owner Edwin Nunes arrested after summoning the local police force.
“Our job was to clamp down on illegalities. Sound pollution and illegal beach parties were rampant during the tourist season and it had to stop, which we ensured,” one of the police officers who was part of the overall raiding team, told Herald.
And then the system took over. He was transferred, on paper a routine administrative decision, in reality he was becoming too hot to handle for not just the men who sold drugs form their shacks, but a senior politician of the area who pressurised the Chief Minister to shunt him.
