The recent news coming from Goa that 5 Goa Policemen were involved in selling Drugs which were earlier seized from the Goa based Drug Dealers is not a shocking news for me, they are now all under suspension. Trading in seized drugs is not uncommon for Goa Police who are considered more corrupt than any other Policemen anywhere in the world. Going back to late sixties and early seventies in the Hippies invested world at Calangute and that whole coastal belt, one Police Inspector of Calangute Police Station had with him as Pimps some locals to do all the dirty jobs for him and for his subordinates including supplying of whores. One business that Police Inspector or Sub Inspector from Calangute Police Station doing was to catch the Hippies in the coastal area under his supervision, confiscate and seize Drugs from them, mainly Kashmiri and Nepali Charas and keep those Hippies under lock up for few hours and then release them minus Charas seized from them. Then the said Police Inspector calls his Pimp friend and instruct him to sell the seized Charas and bring the money to him. In this way the Police Inspector would make handsome money out of this illegal and immoral trade. During those days one gram of Charas would fetch good amount in Indian Rupees.
The worst people in Goa are the Policemen mostly coming from corrupt family background. During the Portuguese regime in Goa, normally decent families never used to send their sons to join Police Force because this profession was considered of “Disgracad” Goans. Also it was considered as disgraceful because Portuguese authority and Portuguese Police Officers used to treat Goan Policemen with lowliness. Goans were not elevated to the top posts with the exception of very few otherwise majority of Goan Policemen were “Guardos” like present day Hawaldar. These Hawaldars were used by their top Portuguese Officers to do all the dirty jobs for them including Pimping and many of our Guardos were doing this dirty jobs to the satisfaction of their Portuguese masters. For this reason Policeman’s job was discarded by the decent Goans coming from decent family background, however poor financially they may be.
In Candolim at Pintos Vaddo on the main road, near Bosio Hospital, one Christao Bamonn Family was supplying their daughter to the top Portuguese Police Officer from Panjim, he used to visit her once a week. When he was busy with his job, his third class Goan Guardo coming from “Rostad” family background used to stand outside the house guarding Portuguese Officer’s BMW Bike and checks nobody is around. In this way our Goan Guardo was used to do the dirty job of a Pimp. This is only one example, like this there are innumerable examples where our Guardos were used to do the dirty jobs for their superiors.
The late singer and Konkani Stage artiste from Calangute, Souza Giao used to tell me “Never to rely on the integrity of Policemen” though there are some good among them but they are very rare. It is not the person but the system of police makes you corrupt and without acquiring this system you cannot attain success in Police Force. It is one of the worst corrupt professions in Goa and how deeply it is corrupt and immoral one could realize from the manner the above mentioned suspended 5 policemen acted.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
