Thaindian News

Panaji, Jan 12 (IANS) A ruling party legislator has said that drug runners had a grip over coastal Goa and that they would soon have enough clout to even shoot the state’s chief minister and home minister.
Agnelo Fernandes, Congress legislator from Calangute, arguably Goa’s most popular tourism hub, said late Monday that the state police had “miserably failed to curb drug trade”.

“If you don’t control the drug trade in the state now then they will be ruling over us soon. They will shoot the chief minister and home minister and we will not have any control over them,” Fernandes, who also runs popular night clubs along the north Goa coast, said.

He also said that he knows numerous instances where peddlers sold drugs in Goa on motorcycles, with police personnel riding pillion.

Fernandes is a senior Congress party legislator and is the chairman of the state-run Economic Development Corporation. His statements come on the heels of Home Minister Ravi Naik’s claims that there was absolutely no drug trade in Goa. Fernandes also said the drug trade in north Goa coast far surpassed that in south Goa.

“There may be drugs in south Goa but as far as north Goa’s coastal belt is concerned, I know for sure drugs are there and I can identify the people who are doing it. So many of them are foreigners,” Fernandes said, alleging that narcotics cartels run by foreigners had virtually parcelled out and controlled portions of coastal Goa.

“Nigerian gangs are controlling narcotics sale in the Candolim-Calangute belt. At Ozrant beach, it is the Israelis who sell it. Russians control it in Morjim beach and the local gangs operate in Anjuna,” he said, alleging a police-politician-drug runner nexus.

Goa’s seedy underbelly was partially exposed when British teenager Scarlett Keeling was raped and killed after she was given a narcotics cocktail two years ago.

Nearly two million tourists visit the state annually, out of which around 450,000 are foreigners.