Panaji: For the last one year Goa, the beach-side resort state of India is witness to the latest blockbuster ‘police-drug mafia nexus’ running houseful.
The participants in this morbid ‘police-drug mafia nexus’ soap opera have flung at us the nuggets of intrigue, deception, histrionics and suspense. The casting couch has spread their net wide from Sweden to Israel for the star cast. The entire story is shot and revolves around Goa and only Goa.
It is open and shut case that drugs, money, and murder have overgrown the last refuge of pleasure in India. Goa has lost its innocence. A turf war among various factions engaged in illicit drug ventures has broken out. Greed has turned lethal.
The state administration has been in denial mode all along over the presence of drugs and drugs dealers operating from the coast.
It was left to Swedish model Lucky Farmhouse, http://lucky.nu/?page_id=78 who has done bits and pieces acting role in Bollywood, to do the star act on Goa police and drug dealers in the state. Her sting operation has forced many a heads to roll in Goa and shattered the official version – there are no drug dealers in Goa.
For long, the 35-year-old had been used to facing the camera. But for once, her sting operation on her former Israeli boy friend Atala alias Yaniv Banaim exposed a can of worms once it was uploaded on popular you tube site. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47uTOPRsHnc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64GFgEVdA2E&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3674698
Six policeman were suspended included the chief of the anti-narcotic cell of the Goa police and were later arrested. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVQTY2Lk4nU&NR=1.
All the six accused — senior police inspector Ashish Shirodkar, head constable Hussein Shaikh and four police constables Saish Pokle, Sanjay Parab, Sandip Parab and Ramchandra Kankonkar — were booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act after they were found having links with Atala.
All were players in the sordid drama of selling the drugs confiscated in police raids and pushing the same drugs back into the market. They are all on bail now.
That was in March 2010. http://www.thelocal.se/27020/20100604/
The story has many flip flops for the police, more through a well thought out design. They allowed Atala, now a free man to jump bail and to flee the country. He fled to Israel and now is cooling his heels in the police lock up in Chile, awaiting extradition to India, after been arrested based on the lookout notice of the Indian authorities.
If the already battered police force were caught with their pants down through the sting operation, more was in the offing.
David Driham alias Dudu, 34, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/ANC-arrests-Israeli-drug-dealer-Dudu/articleshow/5605114.cms yet another arrested Israel drug peddler‘s sister Ayala Driham caught on camera a police sub-inspector, heading Anti-Narcotic Cell, selling a packet of drugs to her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo2SSpV0hrs
Sunil Guddler has since been suspended. http://www.goanews.com/news_disp.php?newsid=1313
Dudu and Atala are many Israeli tourists who frequent to India after compulsory military service.
Goa and Kulu Manali in Himachal Pradesh have been the safe havens for Israeli youth, fresh from mandatory military service, many of them take flight to the beaches of Goa, to get over the trauma. http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/31970/lost-in-goa/
A recent study by Roman Catholic priests based in Goa has portrayed all the negative things associated with Israeli tourists.
“Claiming the right to say no: a study of Israeli tourist behaviour and patterns in Goa” a 96-page book published by the Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP),and authored by 11 seminarians.
The study is based largely on discreet undercover survey and operations carried out by Christian priests.
“Can you imagine young boys killing people. They (Israelis) go mad while in the services. The government sends these people to relaxation hubs. One of them is Goa. Israelis just party with trance music and get intoxicated with drugs and alcohol. They kiss and touch each other openly. They also appear to switch partners They (Israelis) are a nuisance to everybody in and around Palolem. Their dominating nature and other monkey business drives away other tourists. So why do we need them. In Vagator, there is a beach which is called as ‘Israeli beach’ just below the 9 Bar. Non-Israelis are frightened to come over to this place,” are some of the findings of the young priests.
‘Dum Maaro Dum’ (a promo of the film) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMkJkGrBxTg&feature=player_embedded#at=13 a Bollywood film has provided added fire to the ongoing controversy. The film explores the dark underbelly of Goa and is set for an April 22, 2011 release date.
One by one character from Paul Mann’s novel Ganja Coast published in 1995 is coming to live.
The so-called Ganja Coast, in Mann’s novel is a decadent beach community where aging American hippies and drug dealers mingle, where unlimited supply of drugs is available for those who live along the vast beaches. http://www.tambdimati.com/the-last-hippie-standing-video-classic/
There are a few amazing parallels between the death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling which happened at Anjuna three years back and the case characterized by the author in the novel.
Scarlett was administered a cocktail of drugs and was allegedly sexual assaulted before been left to die on the beach. Two men, Placido Carvalho and Samson D’Souza have been charge sheeted in the case, which is going on in the Children Court in Goa.
Scarlett body is yet to be buried by mother Fiona MacKeown, who is determined to get to the bottom of the surface and find the truth behind her daughters death.
In Mann’s novel also there was a dead body of a Hippie child found floating off Anjuna coast too.
The death of Scarlett shook Goa. The seamy side of Goa was exposed. But nothing has changed over the last few years since the teenagers’ death. Foreigners continue to die due to drugs overdose and sexual assaults continue on foreign tourists. 126 foreign nationals died in Goa in the last two years and 40 of them were British nationals.
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2011/feb/060211-goa-tourism-down-foreigner-murders.htm
With the federal investigating CBI finally turning down the Goa government request to investigate the “police-drug mafia nexus” the case has come a full circle. http://expressbuzz.com/nation/cbi-cant-probe-goa-drug-nexus-court-told/258754.html
So what next, the suspense continues. ‘