PANAJI
For a change, journalists came off worse than political party representatives in a face-off between Trinamool Congress’ all-women’s delegation and a pack of media persons outside the Calangute police station on Wednesday, related to the mysterious death of 19-year-old Siddhi Naik.
The stand-off between some media persons on the one hand and the TMC delegation including advocate Seoula Vas, Kavita Kandolkar and the deceased teenager’s father Sandeep was triggered, after a few reporters heckled Vas, while raking up an alleged affair involving Siddhi’s sister, while also suggesting that both sisters had behaved in abhorrent ways and were not following “our culture”.
The face-off occurred soon after the TMC delegation met reporters after submitting a memorandum demanding prompt arrest of the persons accused of allegedly being involved in Siddhi’s death.
The conversation between the two groups went as follows:
Reporter 1: Madam, it is being said that Siddhi Naik had several affairs. How true is this?
TMC delegation members: We do not know. If she did then there has to be an investigation about which of these persons... This is not a question to be asked here. You are defaming a girl.
Reporter 1: For your kind information, two days ago, her sister was caught (with a boy) at around 8 pm by the Colvale police. She cried before them and called her father. As she was crying, she urged the police to release her and accepted her guilt. If girls start doing this then how right is it to blame the family.
TMC delegation: So the media can indulge in defaming girls?
Reporter 1: Should girls wander about in the night?
TMC delegation: If such a thing happens to your sister, would you also indulge in such defamation?
Reporter 1: How can girls wander about at night?
(Some reporters further heckle the TMC delegation, suggesting that the police were wrongly being targeted in the case)
Seoula: It appears that you people who are holding phones do not want anything to happen to the police. We are a group of less than 10 persons as a delegation and (yet there are) 56 cops (to deal with us). This is the problem with police. Where they have to deploy police, they are not deploying them.
When a woman steps out at night anywhere, should she die? Should she be raped? Can the men not stop raping? Will you not ask that question? Why is it about the woman, why is it about the girl? She is 19 years old. She will go wherever she has to go. We have parties, this is a party destination. I am not saying she went for a party. We all go. Everybody goes, you go (too).
Reporter 2: This is not a question of rules... We have a culture. That culture we have to follow.
Seoula: Our culture is a party culture. Goa’s culture is a party culture. Let us not be awkward about it. Our girls go abroad, our girls go everywhere. To study, to do business, to work, to improve their dreams and life. Some of them will lead their lives in the way they are allowed according to the Constitution of India. (The Constitution) does not allow rape. As soon as the person is arrested, ask the rapist, ask the murderer why he did what he did. What he did at night, you ask him. Do not ask the girl.
The face-off between the two groups ended after this exchange, but on whose face the egg landed after the moralistic discourse is for all to judge.
Earlier, the TMC delegation demanded the immediate arrest of the persons involved in Siddhi Naik’s alleged murder.
“These persons have to be arrested within 24 hours. The police have to pull up their socks. Whatever the previous police inspector has not done, this PI has to make up for all that. We want the name of the murderer, his identity and we want he.she be brought to justice,” Vas told reporters, while also demanding the termination of police inspector Nolasco Raposo, who had refused to file a murder case, despite demands by the deceased’s father.
The 19-year-old girl, a resident of Nachinola village in North Goa, was missing since the morning of August 12 and a missing complaint was filed by her father with the Calangute police station. The body was found, in a partially clothed state, on the following day at Calangute beach. A post mortem has ruled out any sexual assault and murder, while identifying the cause of death as drowning.
The case was eventually registered as a murder earlier this week by newly appointed police inspector Navlesh Dessai, who took charge of the Calangute police station soon after the suspension of Raposo in connection with the recent arson at the Souza Lobo restaurant.
