Police in Goa are probing a letter written in block capital letters signed off with the dreaded words ‘ISIS’, threatening Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for pursuing allegedly anti-beef policies.
According to Inspector General of Police Sunil Garg, a post card containing the threat was received by the General Administration Department of the State Secretariat on Friday, which later forwarded the mail to the Goa Police.
“We are in receipt of the letter. It is being investigated,” Garg told The Pioneer.
In disorganised capital alphabets, the letter written in poorly scripted English says: “Since you are not allowing to eat beef, you will be taken care of.
Garg said that the security situation in the State has been reviewed following the receipt of the letter but refused to elaborate on whether the letter could be a hoax or otherwise.
“We are taking no chances. We have beefed up security across Goa. A meeting of all agencies had also been called to discussed the security apparatus in Goa,” Garg said, shortly after a meeting of top police officials, representatives of the armed forces as well top officials of vital installations in the State held at the police headquarters in Panaji.
Asked if security to Parrikar, a former Goa Chief Minister, would be beefed up following the receipt of the letter, on the VIP’s visit to his home State, Garg said: “Adequate security is being provided to the honourable Defence Minister”.
Incidentally, on Sunday the Pernem police station officials had arrested three persons for calling up the police station to inform that terrorists had planted a bomb at the Mandrem beach, located in the constituency of Chief Minister laxmikant Parsekar. The call turned out to be hoax.
Asked to react to the threat to Parrikar and Modi, BJP spokesperson Pramod Sawant told The Pioneer that the police were capable of dealing with such situations. “We are sure the police is doing the best it can,” Sawant said.