the goan I network
MARGAO
Is Hospicio dialysis owner Dr Venkatesh hounded up by the Fatorda police to stop the dialysis facility ever since fire ravaged his unit exactly a week ago?
Yes, says Dr Venkatesh, but the claim is disputed by Fatorda Police station in-charge, PI Navlesh Desai, who has attributed the police presence at Hospicio as part of the ongoing investigations in the June 21 fire mishap.
But, will the Fatorda police explain its presence near the rickshaw carrying the power generator at Borda, which was allegedly driven by a police constable from Hospicio’s rear gate? And, will PI Navlesh explain the presence of as many as two Police Sub-Inspectors and a team of police constables, both at the entrance and the rear gates on Thursday, providing back up support to the hospital security personnel when Dr Venkatesh made an abortive bid to bring a power transformer to the dialysis unit?
The Fatorda police owes an explanation how the generator mounted on a rickshaw which was parked outside the Hospicio rear gate, found its way on the Borda road via Monte Hill and Marlem. The dialysis unit’s attendant had told the media on Thursday that the rickshaw was driven by a man carrying a bag to Borda after assaulting him. While the dialysis attendant did not recognise the man, who assaulted him when he was in the rickshaw, realisation later dawned on him that the person who he was accusing was a cop attached to the Fatorda police station.
In fact, motorists and locals of Borda had seen how the attendant was confronting the person right in front of the media for assaulting him and taking his mobile.
Dr Venkatesh claimed that after the rickshaw carrying the generator was parked outside the rear gate of Hospicio, he took the rickshaw driver for tea since the security guards played truant in opening the gate. “When I and the rickshaw driver went for tea leaving my attendant in the rickshaw, the vehicle was driven towards Monte Hill and which later found its way to Borda. Is this not the handiwork of the police. The police are doing all this at the behest of the authorities to hound me out of Hospicio,” he claimed.
When the media reached the Borda road, they found a PSI and two police constables near the rickshaw carrying the generator, raising a moot question what were these cops doing at the spot if their brief was to investigate the fire incident at Hospicio.
While PI Navlesh has stoutly defended the Fatorda police presence at Hospicio saying his cops were investigating the fire incident, he had no answer whether the police had any written request from Hospicio to back up the security guards to bar Dr Venkatesh from bringing the power generator inside.
For, when this reporter had reached the rear gate of Hospicio at around 1 pm, he had come across half a dozen police personnel posted at the gate along with the security guards. “The police first got the owner of a power generator withdraw from Hospicio after calling him to come with details of the generator. Today, they called me for recording of my statement, which I did in the presence of my lawyer,” Dr Venkatesh said, adding ‘instead of using the police to hound me out, the health services should have served me a notice asking me to vacate the premises’.
