Sometimes police action is questionable. On Sunday, cops from Fatorda police station swooped down on a Goan youth selling mangoes at the Ravindra Bhavan junction and booked him for obstructing traffic. The police went about their job seizing the vehicle and even his cell phone clearly indicating a premeditated move. The youth was not even allowed to call his family members and inform them about his whereabouts.
Police had grounds for action and nobody can stop them from pulling up those doing business along the roadsides. This Goan youth, who is active on social media, has undoubtedly ruffled a few feathers. But taking a person into custody, seizing his car and his mobile phone is very rare and unheard of.
Roadside vendors are a regular feature in Fatorda. There are countless migrants selling ISL franchise during the football league all along the Opinion Poll pavement and even along the other two roads leading to the stadium with the police remaining silent onlookers. There are fruit vendors with their carts and there are migrants with all sorts of products waiting for customers at the entry point of the SGPDA market and there are times when policemen themselves are their customers.
Interestingly, even after the youth was picked up by the police on Sunday, there was a migrant driving in with an open rickshaw full of pineapples on Monday morning at the very spot where the incident happened. Roadside vendors are seen all over the Margao market, a stone’s throw from the municipality building.
A few kilometres away along the Verna bypass, vendors are openly selling their farm produce, including fruits and vegetables and even coconuts, in full glare. At some point of time, there was fish sold at this highway junction throwing traffic into chaos every evening. There are traffic jams happening on a regular basis as tourists and locals stop their vehicles on the highway.
A little further along the now-haunted Zuari bridge stretch, there are people openly selling crabs, fresh water fish and flowers to motorists adding to the traffic chaos, with the police team positioned a few metres away. We haven’t seen worse traffic jams than the ones we see frequently at the Zuari bridge. A little further there are vendors along the Agasaim bypass selling tender coconut water and other fruits. There has been no news of vendors being picked up and meted out such a treatment.
If there are directives to clear roadside vendors, then they should apply to all. All those who are selling goods along roads should be treated equally and should be cleared off, irrespective of their caste, religion or influences. Those who are raising concerns about rising migrant population in the State, should also look at the rise of migrants doing business in Goa.
