Panaji: Two days after the Goa government launched a crackdown on the Nigerian nationals illegally living in Goa, a senior state BJP minister on Sunday equated Nigerians as a `cancer`.
"The Nigerians are like cancer. We are worried what would be the image of Goa for the outside world when the images of Nigerians creating ruckus on the road are showed through television to the world," State Art and Culture Minister Dayanand Mandrekar said.
Around 200 Nigerians had blocked the national highway last week protesting against the drug-related murder of a fellow national. 53 Nigerians had been arrested following the incident.
The minister said that the situations like Nigerians taking on the road will have bad repercussion on the tourism industry of the state on which people from the coastal belt earn their living.
Mandrekar said that timely police action could have saved the highway from being blocked by the Nigerians.
"People have seen on the television how Nigerians forcibly dragged out the corpse from the police van while the policemen remained silent spectators," he said.
The minister also claimed that the drug menace in the state has crossed the limits of coastal belt and has now percolated to the villages.
"You all blame coastal belt for being the hot bed of drugs, but now the scene is different. The narcotics has entered the villages of Goa and sold there," he said refusing to comment whether "the narcotic trade has lessened in the BJP government tenure."
