If one goes through the list of ‘unwanted guests’ in the resort State, Goa has tagged itself as a major hideout for the militants owing to a failure of intelligence inputs that keeps them safe from being tracked. What’s even more embarrassing for successive State governments and the Goa Police is that these terrorists were arrested by other agencies during their ‘holiday’ period here or nabbed elsewhere.
The arrest of Indian Mujahideen (IM) suspect Syed Ismail Afaq in Bangalore last September was the latest example exposing poor intelligence of the Goa police. The Bangalore police’s probe revealed the 34-year-old had undergone paragliding training at Arambol in 2014 before he was arrested along with his colleagues.
In the same year, the Mumbai police in a joint collaboration with Mumbai Crime Branch had swooped down on a bungalow at Saligao where underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s ex-aide Shyam Garikapatti was hiding. The locals identified him as a simple man who lived at Palm’s Splendour bungalow for over eight years. Alike other terrorists, he too had hidden his real identity as he was known as Govind Rao to the locals.
Pakistani trained Kashmiri terrorist Tariq Ahmed Batlo, Odisha’s top Naxal leader Shambhu Beck, Chota Rajan’s sharp shooter Sheikh Umaid-ur-Rehman Ishrat Hussain, Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba’s David Coleman Headley and Indian Mujahideen’s co-founder Yasin Bhatkal have been Goa’s high profile tourists.
Headley, being one of the main kingpins of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai came and lived near Starco junction at Anjuna under different names for several weeks before exiting safely.
Four Manipur-based militants including a high-profile woman were arrested by the then Goa police team after a tip off from their counterparts in Manipur. Among scores of migrant labourers from Bhoma, Old Goa and Mapusa area, the most wanted Mauvadi Trishu Manch (MTM) naxalite head Beck – a labourer-like woman- was finally arrested.
This was followed by the arrest of Sheikh Umaid-ur-Rehman Ishrat Hussain, one of gangster Chota Rajan sharpshooters.
Yasin Bhatkal’s stay in Goa, within a one kilometer radius of Anjuna police station from November 2011 to February 2012, also turned out to be a major intelligence lapse. The non filling of tenant verification forms by concerned landlords has also often proved costly for the State.
