Goa government soft on drug mafia: Congress

Panaji: The Congress on Saturday alleged that the Goa government was going soft on the state`s drug mafia, a day after the BJP-led coalition conceded that no action has been taken on the findings of an assembly panel on police-politician-drug mafia nexus.

"The BJP, while in opposition, created a big noise over alleged police-politician-drug mafia nexus. After coming to power, then chief minister Manohar Parrikar appointed a house committee to investigate the same case and now the government says they have not investigated its findings. There is something fishy here," Congress general secretary Durgadas Kamat said in a statement here on Saturday.

During the budget session of the assembly which concluded on Friday, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, in a written reply to a query raised by Congress member Digambar Kamat, had cited a technical glitch while explaining the government`s inability to probe the nexus.

He had said that the report was transferred to the anti-corruption branch, under the Directorate of Vigilance in September 2015 to conduct a probe.

"However, no investigation was conducted by anti-corruption in the matter, since the same was beyond the scope of the anti-corruption branch," Parsekar said.

The report, authored by a team of legislators headed by Nuvem MLA Francisco Pacheco of the Goa Vikas Party, was tabled in the assembly in 2013. It indicted Ravi Naik, home minister in the then Congress-led coalition government and his son Roy for their alleged links to the Israeli drug mafia operating in Goa.

The report had also called former DGP Kishen Kumar the "kingpin" for providing police protection to the drug mafia.

Kamat alleged that the government, by not probing the nexus and the evidence listed in the report, was abetting the drug mafia.

"We would like to ask the government why was a drug-related matter sent to the anti-corruption bureau and not to the anti-narcotics cell. It is quite evident now that there is a clear match-fixing by the BJP leaders with those involved in the drug trade," the Congress leader alleged.