PANAJI
Sachin Naik Borkar, the absconding kingpin in the food grain smuggling case, has blamed Goa police for acting on political pressure.
In his anticipatory bail filed before the District & Sessions Court, Borkar accused the investigating agency of making moves to arrest him on the diktats of their political bosses while seeking relief from police action.
The Court is likely to hear the matter on Friday morning and the Crime Branch (CB) is set to oppose his plea.
On the other hand, four of the five persons, arrested for theft and illegal transportation of 1014 bags of rice and wheat were granted conditional bail on a personal bail of Rs 20,000 each. The accused had applied for bail before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Ponda soon after it remanded them to one-day police custody.
Meanwhile, the CB sleuths inspected the Bethora godown on Thursday to ascertain discrepancies in the stock and called for records from the Civil Supplies Department. “The accused confessed they stole the food grains from the government godowns. We are only verifying the facts…Prima facie investigation reveals that large quantities of wheat and rice bags are stolen to sell in the open market at a higher price. Our investigation will contain all angles,” a senior officer said, quickly adding, “If there's no crime in the seizure of the grains, then why are Sachin Naik Borkar and Virendra Mardolkar absconding?”
Civil Supplies Director Gopal Parsekar has already made a media statement denying any theft of food grains from their stock.
