A war of words has broken out between the Goa Police and the Telangana Police over the alleged crackdown on drugs with the Hyderabad police telling the media -- in quite an unusual outburst -- that they were receiving no support from the Goa Police in their ongoing crackdown on drugs. The Goa Police has hit back, via an official statement, that they received no request for support and are ever willing to cooperate should such a request come through proper channels.
While the Hyderabad Police comments have been lapped up by a section of the media and used as a stick to beat the Goa Police with, everything is not what it seems on the surface. On the contrary, what comes to light is that the Hyderabad Police aren’t covering themselves in glory either.
At the centre of the controversy is the arrest of one Preetesh Borkar, an alleged drug peddler from Goa and resident of Anjuna, who the Hyderabad Police claim was arrested as he was selling drugs within the jurisdiction of the Osmania University Police station on August 16, and drugs were seized from his person.
It is this Borkar, who the Hyderabad Police claim, has been singing like a canary while in their custody and has named a total of 174 persons as being involved in a “multi-state drug racket” who he said were his main suppliers. Among those named in the FIR include the owner of Curlies Edwin Nunes, as well as the owners of other neighbouring nightclubs including UV Bar, Shiva Valley and others.
However things get murkier when one realises that Borkar wasn’t arrested by the Hyderabad police from Habsiguda within the jurisdiction of the Osmania University Police station on August 16 -- but according to his family was missing from his village of Anjuna from August 1 onwards prompting a missing complaint to be lodged at the Anjuna police station on August 2, which was later upgraded to a complaint of kidnapping after CCTV footage revealed that he was bundled into a taxi and taken to Telangana by men believed to be plain clothed officers of the Telangana police. This effectively means that Borkar was in their custody for two weeks or more before he was shown to be officially arrested.
Is the Hyderabad police's claim of lack of cooperation from the Goa Police a cover for having arrested Borkar from Goa without following the mandated procedure? That explains the lack of an official request for cooperation as claimed by the Goa Police and further -- non-response to information by the Goa Police to their Hyderabad counterparts that one of the men they are looking for is already in the custody of the Goa Police.
There is a very good reason why the police have to follow due process -- especially considering the kind of power they hold. Any digression from the laid down procedure is bound to be to the detriment of the individual and only empowers the State in the stranglehold it has over the citizen. In that sense, the Hyderabad police have been found severely wanting and in no position to lecture the Goa police when it comes to tackling crime.
That said, the Goa Police needs to up its game in tackling the main facilitators of the drug business in the State thereby leaving no opportunity for the police from other States to interfere in their functioning.
