The Goa Legislative Assembly on Tuesday was seized with a critical issue — the State’s law and order machinery. Opposition members raised serious concerns over the deteriorating law and order situation, and the debate laid bare a deeper institutional malaise. Opposition leaders pointed to a disturbing rise in unchecked violence — from shootout incidents, including the daring casino firing recently, to rapes, brazen daylight robberies, drug cartels, land mafias and recurring violent brawls in tourist hotspots.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who holds the Home portfolio, boasted of a 98.92% crime detection rate, while crediting his police force. He went on to defend the dismal conviction rate of 5.85 per cent on multiple counts. He argued that the high acquittal rate in rape cases is because of “live-in” and love relationships gone sour, while adding that there are many cases of compromises after registration. While speaking of crime, he disclosed that over 90 per cent of crimes are committed by migrants.
Firstly, the yawning gap between detection and conviction points to serious weaknesses in investigation. Even with more than 9,000 criminal cases still pending, the system appears to be failing at a stage that matters most — getting a conviction in court. When the overwhelming majority of accused persons are acquitted, a high detection rate begins to look less like an achievement and more like a statistic designed to mask deeper failures.
The argument over acquittals in rape cases appears to be an evasion that risks trivialising the experiences of victims while diverting attention from the quality of investigations. The same is true of pointing at migrants for crime. Blaming migrant workers may make for convenient political rhetoric, but it does nothing to address the weakness in enforcement. Crime flourishes when the certainty of punishment is weak, regardless of who commits it. Crime flourishes when there is no fear. Take the example of the recent Porvorim shootout, when gunmen opened fire on a casino director despite the premises being close to the North Goa Police Headquarters. When armed assailants can operate with such brazenness, the public’s sense of security is bound to suffer. Add to this the recent violent nightclub brawl in the heart of the capital city. It appears that there is no fear of the police.
To make matters worse, the courts have picked holes in the investigations in numerous cases — from the Morjim demolition to the Birch fire case. Interestingly, the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court, while hearing a sexual offence case a few years back, had warned the police that “there is a real danger of investigating agencies gaining an impression that sexual offence is tolerable”. The court asked the Director General of Police to conduct an internal inquiry into systemic failures in handling sensitive crimes. In the Borim temple vandalism case, the High Court observed that it appeared there was no rule of law and that Goa was turning into a lawless state due to sluggish police response. There are numerous cases where the police have been pulled up for flawed investigation.
Goa cannot be governed through statistical sleight of hand or rhetoric that shifts responsibility onto outsiders and personal relationships. The government needs to confront the failures within its own policing and prosecution machinery, fix investigative lapses, hold negligent officers accountable and ensure that cases stand up in court. If there is a shortfall of manpower, fix it. Until the quality of investigation improves, deterrence will remain weak, and public confidence in the justice system will continue to erode.
