By Rajan Narayan The proposed changes in the new Police Act to be tabled in the forthcoming assembly session is injurious not only to the aam aadmi but even to the MLAs themselves. The new Police Act vests the political regime in power with even more discretionary power to harass all those who disagree with the government, whether it is NGOs, or opposition politicians. LAST FRIDAY the better three quarters had her purse pick-pocketed at the Panjim market when she was buying vegetables and fruits. While she was walking towards a fruit stall she was pushed by some unknown persons. When she looked for the pouch containing the money which was at the top of her open handbag she found it was missing. Realizing that her handbag had been picked and her pouch containing a few hundred rupees was missing, she went to the Panjim police station to lodge a complaint. The police sub-inspector (PSI) present was not inclined to register her complaint. The presumption being that it was not worth recording a First Information Report (FIR) for the loss of a few hundred rupees. NEGLIGENT STAFF THE PSI refused to register a complaint though it is mandatory for every police station to register any complaint made by a citizen and state reasons in writing if a complaint is not or cannot be registered. Since the better three quarters was insistent on her right to lodge a complaint, the PSI consulted the police inspector in-charge of the Panjim police station. The Police Inspector asked for the name of the complainant. When he was told that the complainant was the wife of Rajan Narayan the Editor of the Goan Observer he not only directed the PSI to register a complaint but deputed an ASI to accompany her to the market to see if she could identify the pickpocket! An 85-year-old senior citizen Frank Martins has been having problems with his mundkars and his tenants who have not only been encroaching on his ancestral property in Khorlim near Mapusa but are also vandalizing his ancestral house. In fact, they had allegedly even broken the lock of the ancestral house and looted the contents of the house. Frank Martins approached the Mapusa Police station to register a complaint. Since his hands tremble and he has difficultly in writing, he asked the hawaldar to write down his complaint. The hawaldar refused. After my intervention a complaint was registered. But, apparently, because the mundkar and tenant is related to one of the corporators of the Mapusa Municipal Corporation, the police are unwilling to investigate the matter. Frank Martins cannot even go to his ancestral house to inspect it or maintain it because the mundkars and tenants have some ferocious dogs which they let loose on him. WHEN the son of the owner of the Hilltop restaurant in Anjuna, which is a venue for rave parties at which allegedly drugs are freely available, the police showed extraordinary zeal in tracking down the kidnappers and rescuing the son who was held hostage in the forest of Canacona. The SP South Goa was publicly felicitated for personally tracking down and overpowering the kidnappers. Who were led by a Nepali who was a past employee of the night-club. But though Mickky and Lyndon Monteriro were allegedly absconding for over a month, not all the police officers and the police constables of Goa could track him down. Even though the South Goa police knew where Mickky was hiding and Mickky, whom the police could not find, visited a notary in the heart of Margao to get a certificate which would exempt him from being present at the anticipatory bail hearings. Only after Mickky was refused bail by the Supreme Court did he surrender to the district court. In the meanwhile of course, a lot of the critical evidence relating to the case like the mobile phones used by Nadia and possibly Mickky, the tube of Rattol which Nadia is supposed to have accidentally consumed and the clothes that she wore, on the night she attempted to commit suicide, were all destroyed. PRIVILEGED ROY WHILE the police and the prosecution have been very zealous in registering first a complaint of attempted suicide and subsequently of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and managed to gather enough evidence to impress even the Supreme Court not to grant anticipatory bail to Mickky Pacheco, in the case of the son of the Home Minister, Roy Ravi Naik, who has been publicly accused of having close links with the alleged drug baron Atala, the police have not even registered a complaint against him. Unlike in case of Mickky Pacheco, when not only Nadia’s mother but her former husband and even Mickky’s wife Sara were called in for questioning, the police were unwilling to record the statement of Atala’s estranged girlfriend who posted videos on the net and who insisted that Roy Naik was closely linked with Atala and visited him very often. The police also have refused to hand over the case to the CBI which was the obvious course of action considering that Home Minister’s son is allegedly involved. The mother of Scarlette Keeling, who was found murdered on the beach at Anjuna, had also alleged that the Home Minister and his son had tried to hush up the case and sabotage the investigation into the Scarlette Keeling case. Now the relatives of another Englishman, Stephen Bennett, who was found dead in mysterious circumstances, are also alleging that Roy Naik is involved in the death of the Englishman. The common link being narcotics. POLICE POODLES THE police are poodles of the politicians. When Bosco Geroge, the Superintendent of Police of North Goa, set out with great enthusiasm to nail the Home Minister’s claim that no narcotics were consumed or traded at rave parties and that claims of Goa having become a major drug traffic centre were highly exaggerated, he was promptly transferred to the Raj Bhavan as ADC to the Governor. Not only the SP who led the retaliatory raid on Babush Monserrate’s mansion, after the latter led a mob into attacking the Panjim police station and freeing an alleged criminal who was in police custody, the police inspector and all the constables involved in the raid on the Monserrate mansion, were transferred. This is not an isolated case and whenever any police officer, whether it is a police inspector or the SP or even the DIG or the DGP, who have refused to cooperate with the politicians in power, has been promptly transferred. It may be recalled that during the tenure of Manohar Parrikar as chief minister, the highly reputed Director General of Police, who had played a key role in bringing to book the assassins of the late Rajiv Gandhi, was harassed into leaving Goa. During Digamber Kamat’s tenure as Power Minister defacto No. 2 in the Manohar Parrikar government, a Dy.SP Shirish Thorat, who had arrested a brother-in-law of the present Chief Minister on a charge of using the Vistar Hotel in Panjim for prostitution, was not only suspended but hounded out of the police force. PLIABLE POLICE A pliable police force is a threat to the aam aadmi. A pliable police force which dances to the tune of their political masters is a threat even to members of the legislature. Parrikar used the police force to harass his political rival, Somnath Zuwarkar, who was then treasurer of the Congress party, Dayanand Narvekar, who was implicated in the cricket ticket scam and Mauvin Godinho, who was implicated in the power subsidy scam. Now Digamber Kamat or rather Ravi Naik is using and abusing the police to victimise and hound Mickky Pacheco for describing Goa as rape and drug capital of the country and demanding Ravi Naik’s sacking from the cabinet and his position as Home Minister. Mickky is probably guilty of abetting suicide but the charge of homicide is most likely politically motivated. Just as Parrikar harassed and intimidated several Congress politicians, I would not be in the least surprised if Ravi Naik decides to harass and intimidate and direct the police to frame charg es against BJP MLAs who are demanding the sacking of Ravi Naik and a CBI probe into the revelation by Atala’s former girlfriend in a Swedish paper of Roy Naik‘s frequent visits to Atala. It was with a view to insulate the police from political interference that it was proposed that a new police bill should be introduced. But the new police bill which is intended to plug the loopholes in the system which permits politicians in power to kick police officers even at the level of the DGP and IGP around like so many footballs, is designed to give the politicians even more discretionary and extra constitutional powers over the police force. The new police bill stipulates that police officers at any level including the level of the DGP can be removed due to administrative exigencies. Which in simple English means that police officers, at any level, can be transferred or vicitimised when they do not dance to the tune of the politicians. PROPOSED BILL INDEED the proposed police bill, which is expected to be taken up in the monsoon session of the assembly, seeks to create and handover the task of policing to the chamchas of politicians. By the proposal empowering the government to appoint special police officers who will not be from the police force but will be nominated by a committee dominated by politicians in power and government officials. Far worse, the state government is seeking to empower politicians with total discretionary power by declaring parts of the state as special zones where the police would enjoy powers that are now exercised by the special police and army acts in Jammu and Kashmir and naxalite affected districts. Under the special powers the police will have the right to arrest anyone without assigning any reason and conduct searches of homes and business establishments without even a search warrant. A detailed analysis of consequences of the enactment of the special police act in its present form which has been prepared by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) appears elsewhere in the current issue. But even the record of the Goa government in complying with Supreme Court directives has been very poor. A survey conducted reveals that not just Goa but no state in the country has managed to fulfill all the criteria prescribed by the Supreme Court with regard to setting up a state security commission. Similarly, the majority of the states in the country including Goa have not complied with the Supreme Court directives that senior officers like the DGP, Superintendents of Police and Police Inspectors should have a fixed tenure of at least two years and should not be transferred due to administrative exigencies. The Supreme Court directive on the tenure of officers with specific responsibilities such as heading the crime branch or the narcotic cell has also not been compiled with. The biggest lapse, of course, is the failure to separate the investigation and law and order functions. The survey has found that 64% of the states, including Goa, have not compiled with the directive to separate the investigative and law and order functions. The new police bill needs to be debated and discussed and amended to ensure that it does not further strengthen the strangle-hold of unscrupulous and corrupt politicians in power over police establishments. The graphs indicate the degree of compliance with Supreme Court Directives on police reforms. _________________________________________________________________ Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969
