Behind all the hullabaloo and war of words over Nigerians in Goa following the Thursday fracas, there remains a very perplexing question which still remains unanswered.
Faced with the murder of one of their compatriots in the wee hours of Thursday October 31, a handful of Nigerians began arguing with the police at the crime scene. later they stopped the hearse van in the middle of a busy highway leading to the State capital and “took the law into their own hands.” What still remains a mystery is: “What exactly were the Nigerians demanding from the policeIJ” It is more than
clear that because their demand was not met they took the law into their own hands and a skirmish threatened to blow into a diplomatic incident, threatening the lives of Indians living in Nigeria. The State establishment, the administration and the police has been surprisingly silent on this issue. The answer to that question could blow the lid off a grimy turf war over the sale of drugs with the local political class a powerful game changer.
Theories vary. One such theory says that the police were refusing to seriously consider the Nigerians inputs as to who could be behind the murder and further were appearing to not act against the alleged murderers because they had the backing of a local senior ruling politician. Another theory suggests that they wanted to accompany the body to the morgue and have the post-mortem done in the presence of their ambassador as they feared that the police would alter evidence to favour the opponents.
A third theory suggests that the police were not conducting a proper panchanama at the crime scene and that this infuriated the Nigerians as an incorrect record of the crime scene would not be in their favour. They didn’t want the body moved until they were satisfied that the panchanama was done to their satisfaction.
In all the above three scenarios, the Goa Police is being seen as villains taking the side of a local gang that is responsible for the murder and either improperly investigating the case or not acting against the local gang obviously because of the political pressure. Much contrary to the popular notion that areas of Goa’s coastline have been parceled out amongst drug cartels of Russian, Nigerian, Israeli nationalities, in well guarded turf wars in reality, it’s not territory which is the crucial factor.
“Russian tourists find it safer to buy drugs from their fellow nationals or at places run by fellow nationals. Same applies to other nationalities as well. It works well for the dealers too because the can mix easily and camouflage themselves with their countrymen. No suspicions arise,” says a senior anti-narcotics cell official.
But while the talk about foreigner-run mafia makes for interesting headlines reportage, it is the Indian, in this case very Goan end of the narcotics mafia, which deserves more attention because of the political power it wields, irrespective of which political party is in power, and the quantum of human resource it controls in Goa’s tourism-savvy coastal belt.
“These are the dealers who are difficult to break. There’s just too much political pressure. So we depend on these dealers to give use minor cases, mostly non Goans who work for them and don’t have any use for them anymore,” the official said, adding that the race for volume of cases often resulted in small fry being nabbed.
Sources in the industry say that it is the Nigerians and Indians that have to compete for a pie of the domestic tourists buy drugs.
And with Thursday’s incident, the subsequent unruly highway blockade by angry Nigerians and the popular tide of resentment against the Afro community, the local drug dealers appear to be on the winning side.
With the police crackdown on all Nigerians in general, in many cases even evicting Nigerians from their homes with a 24-hour notice, the Nigerian drug lobby is definitely on the back foot.
When the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday attacked the BJP’s coastal MlAs and Ministers to allow the drug trade to go on, it was only a open secret that they were articulating.
“It is the coastal MlAs who are involved in sheltering drug trade,” NCP vice president Trajano D’Mello claimed, while he didn’t say he could give the names on record. A recent legislative committee report on drug trade led by Francisco Pacheco which said there was “enormous amount of documentary evidence available to pin point the identity and criminal engagement of Roy Naik, son of Ravi Naik, the then Home minister of Goa in drug trade” has however not been signed by the Calangute MlA Michael lobo, a member of the committee saying that it was ‘anti-police’.
The report also calls Director General of Police as the “kingpin” who protects and shelters the drug mafia. Thursday’s violence was not the first. There have been bloody, public scuffles between the Nigerian drug dealers and local gangs in Goa’s most popular party lane, near Club Titos over the right to sell drugs in the beach stretch constantly buzzing with young tourists as well as cases where Nigerians were victims of crime.