Thaindian News

Panaji, June 3 (IANS) More than a month after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) assured the Bombay High Court that it would probe Goa’s police-politician-drug mafia nexus cases, the federal investigation agency has still not begun its investigations.

In a written assurance to the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court in April, the CBI had tolld Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice F.M. Reis that the agency would probe three drug related cases in which several police officers and Israeli drug dealers have been arrested.

CBI Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Pravin Salunke said the agency was still awaiting a notification from the union department of personnel and training, authorising the federal agency to take over the cases from the state police.

“We will start investigating once we get the notification,” Salunke said.

The investigation into the drug nexus case, in which Home Minister Ravi Naik’s son Roy has allegedly been involved, is currently in the limbo. Police officials claim that the crime branch had stopped investigating the case after the state government announced that the case would be handed over to the CBI.

The nexus between police, politicians and the drug mafia in Goa was exposed after a Swedish model and a former girlfriend of an Israeli drug dealer, Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, uploaded videos showing Atala boasting of his police links.

Atala, who was arrested by the police last year along with eight other police officers, later jumped bail and is now awaiting extradition in Lima, Peru.