Calangute MLA/Ports Minister Michael Lobo must be congratulated for holding a meeting with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and for rightly raising the issue of continuous harassment of tourists by the traffic police on the pretext of checking documents in Goa.
These cops over the years have been seen doing nothing worthwhile but idling their time roaming around in departmental vehicles wasting petrol and extorting money from young couples on beaches, collecting their regular haftas or bribes from those distributing drugs/running pubs/discotheques/prostitution centres and indulging in eve-teasing/blackmailing married women in Goa.
Today criminals like murderers, extortionists, rapists are frequently entering our state from railway stations, airport, borders without any checks but our cops are found unnecessarily harassing only visiting tourists (including Goans) and officially indulging in their regular daily 'hafta-vasooli'.
I think that if the government really wants to keep the state safe from all known criminals then it should seriously decide to send these surplus cops from the police department to strictly do the verification of all the documents of every visitor at the airport, railway stations and all the borders instead of allowing them to harass innocents on the internal roads of Goa.
