What better proof do District Collector Ajit Roy and the district police chief Pankaj Kumar Singh need to rid the Margao Municipal Council garden of miscreants when an accused arrested by the Fatorda police in the burning of three auto-rickshaws at Mungul is a familiar face taking shelter on the benches of the garden?
That the accused arrested in the Mungul incident was often found seated on the MMC garden benches is not in dispute. The Fatorda police have categorically stated that the accused, who has a history of mischief by setting vehicles on fire, is a regular person taking shelter on the benches of the municipal garden.
That’s not all. Even the police would admit that a woman or two, who have recently made their presence felt at the MMC garden footpath, are suspected to be sex workers.
The question that has left Madgavkars baffled in times of the pandemic is why are the district and police authorities dragging their feet in clearing the municipal garden of the beggars, make-believe beggars or miscreants and accommodating them in shelter homes.
Sources say that some of the miscreants use the garden benches to drink liquor and create a nuisance for the people using the footpaths, a situation that has still not evoked any action from the Margao municipality or the Margao police.
Or, are the authorities just turning a blind eye to the menace in the absence of any mechanism worth its name to house the people without shelter in the commercial capital or outside?
Police sources in the know informed that not all the persons taking shelter on the municipal garden benches are migrants, saying there may be some local persons too taking shelter there.
So far, the district authorities and the police have failed to put a mechanism in place to identify the beggars and those without shelter and then house them at the shelter homes.
The Nehru stadium, Fatorda, was identified by the office of the Deputy Collector, Margao, more than a month ago when two beggars, who had died in the city, had tested positive for Covid.
