By Rajan Narayan

IT was May 16, 1991. Churchill Alemao has just become the chief minister of Goa by toppling the Pratapsingh Raoji Rane government. Churchill had organized a mega birthday celebration at the football grounds outside his ancestral residence at Varca. All the Churchill brothers Joaquim Alemao, Ciabro Alemao, Roosevelt Alemao and Kennedy Alemao were present at the birthday celebration. All of Goa was there including members of a PDA cabinet. Both the chief secretary and the Inspector General of Police and all the top police officials were present in Varca. Only Alvernaz Alemao was missing.
Alvernaz Alemao was at Fatrade Beach, just adjacent to the Ramada Beach Resort owned by Sundar Advani. A fishing trawler was parked near the seashore. Churchill’s workers unloaded smuggled gold into small boats which were brought to the seashore. From the beach, the gold was packed in empty car battery containers and loaded into a Contessa car registered in the name of Churchill Alemao.
Alvernaz was quite shocked when customs officer Costao Fernandes tried to stop his car. Costao had been keeping watch because information had come in that gold had landed at Fatrada beach. Nobody expected that this would be happen in broad daylight. Costao was not armed except for a karate dagger.
When accosted Alvernaz drove away at very fast speed down the winding lane to the highway. Costao got on to his motor bike and gave chase. Close to a bar near the main road the road widened and Costao overtook and came side by side of the Contessa. The passenger side window was open and from his moving bike in true Hindi film-style, Costao jumped into the moving car. There was a scuffle and a knife-fight in which unfortunately Alvernaz Alemao lost his life.
I reached the spot within one hour of the incident. I ran into Additional Customs Collector Daya Shankar. Together we traced the path of the Contessa and saw how Costao had a narrow escape. He came out of car, opened the dickey and showed us and the people who had gathered there the smuggled gold bars. By that the time Churchill’s goons had landed there. They were very angry over the death of Alvernaz. They threatened Costao Fernandes. The customs officer was helpless. Costao went back to the beach and swam across to Mobor. The body of Alvernaz was taken to the morgue at Hospicio hospital in Margao.
Daya Shankar had only been recently posted as the additional commissioner of customs in Goa. Daya was a veteran of anti-smuggling operations. Daya had received two bullets when he launched a war against Sukur Narain Bhakhia who was the king of the smuggling mafia in the west coast based at Daman. Daya managed to capture Bhakhia and had him sent to prison. Earlier Bhakhia had very dramatically escaped from the Aguada jail at Candolim. The Aguada prison is surrounded by the ocean. Bhakhia jumped into the sea and a speed boat which was waiting for him picked him up.
I accompanied Daya Shankar to the morgue in Hospicio hospital, Margao where the post-mortem of Alvernaz Alemao was to be held. An angry Churchill Alemao was present and he insisted that Costao Fernandes had murdered his brother Alvernaz Alemao. I visited the morgue and saw Alvernaz’ body. Like all the Alemao brothers he was six feet tall, seven feet broad. Even in death he looked very intimidating. The cause of death was a throat injury caused by the sharp instrument.
Daya and I went to the residence of Dr Silvano Dias Sapeco who was the head of the Forensic department at the Goa Medical College & Hospital. He had conducted the post-mortem. We explained the background of the case to him. Subsequently, Daya Shankar arrested all the Churchill brothers. There was a soundproof cabin at the customs office opposite the jetty. It has now converted to the Customs Museum.
The tough stocky Daya gave the Churchill brothers a taste of their own medicine. The problem was that the smuggled gold had been taken away by Roy Miranda and other agents of the Alemaos. Daya Shankar could not trace where the gold was hidden. In the meanwhile Churchill Alemao filed a complaint of murder against Costao Fernandes. As he was the chief minister Churchill Alemao managed to get the CBI to file the charge sheet. I was present at the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court when the case came up for hearing. The case was listed at No.60 on the board. The tradition was all the cases that were to be heard were listed and taken up in serial order for the day. Many cases were adjourned so more than the number of cases that could be heard were listed. Customs lawyer Ajit Shirodkar decided that the case would only come up in the afternoon.
At that time there was only one flight to Goa from Bombay which arrived at 2pm. Churchill had hired the famous criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who had arrived the previous night. Jethmalani was a very dominating personality. Even judges were intimidated by him. On Jethmalani’s insistence, the case scheduled in the afternoon was heard in the morning itself by the presiding judge GD Kamat. The junior counsel of customs MS Rajni Desai protested she could not stand up to Jethmalani. By the time the customs judge Ajit Shirodkar arrived in the afternoon, the hearing was over.
I happened to make some comments on the conduct of Judge GD Kamat in the OHeraldo of which I was the editor. I was immediately hauled up for contempt of court and a complaint was filed by the chamcha High Court Bar Association, then headed by ML Usgaocar. The case was shifted to Mumbai, where very senior Mumbai lawyer Sarosh Zaiwalla represented the Goa Bar Association.
Unfortunately, the truth has no defense in a defamation case. Finally, he had to apologize to the Bombay High Court to a bench comprising Justice Madhav Laxman Pendse and Michael Saldanha who was the junior judge. This was during my steroids phase when my weight had zoomed to 180 kilos and I could barely breathe. I was quite sick and looking like a sumo wrestler with my ungainly weight.
Michael Saldanha did not agree with Laxman Pendse but he was the junior judge and had to keep quiet. However, Michael Saldanha who has since retired as the chief justice of the Bengaluru high court, came to the residence of my very senior advocate friend Anusuya Dutt and expressed his sympathies for me.
Costao Fernandes was convicted on the CBI charge for the murder of Alvernaz Alemao. My dear friend Daya Shankar went on to appeal to the Supreme Court but the SC not only acquitted Costao Fernandes but passed severe strictures against the prosecution. The SC acknowledged and saluted the bravery of Costao Fernandez. Hindi filmmaker Sejal Shah is in the process of making a film on Costao Fernandes and it is expected to be released by end-2024.
The real hero of the Churchill Alemao’s smuggling case is customs officer Daya Shankar. Significantly, Daya Shankar was transferred out of the Goa and posted in Mumbai. When he caught Dhirubhai Ambani smuggling large quantities of yarn, he was transferred to a non-existent computer wing in the customs department. Daya got tired of the harassment and got admission to Sydney University in Australia to do his doctorate in Patent Law. He never came back because he kept extending his leave and retired at end of his career. He had become a professor at the Sydney University on the subject of intellectual rights.
When Daya was in Goa he would call his young son as “budhu seth,” he wanted his son to be a tennis champion. Every day Daya would spend several hours teaching his son tennis. Indeed, one of the reasons for migrating to Australia was to find professional coaches to teach his son tennis. The city of Sydney alone has over a hundred tennis coaches where young people can become champions. Unfortunately for Daya his son later on lost interest and gave up tennis.
A media person’s life is always fraught with petty legal battles. In the course of reporting about the Churchill gold smuggling case, I had mentioned to an agent, namely Narain Dossa, about his alleged links with Dawood Ibrahim who was into smuggling. Apparently, he had helped the Churchill brothers to hide the gold. Dossa, married to a Goan girl, owned a hotel in Baga. It was a passing one line mention in a write-up. Daya was working closely with Xavier Marques who looked after the film interests of Dawood Ibrahim in Mumbai.
Dossa also owned a bungalow in Lonavala, the lovely hill station about a 100km from Mumbai. He filed a defamation case against me in the court of a petty rural magistrate in a small village called Vadgaon Budruk near Pune. The judge used to stay in Pune and come by train at 11am. To get to Vadgaon I had to fly to Bombay and take a taxi to Vadgaon. The case was filed not only against me but also the publisher and directors of OHeraldo. None of the local lawyers would represent us as they were reportedly indebted to Dossa.
Finally we were forced to hire the young charming lawyer Charmine Boccarro, Goan in Mumbai, to represent us. Charmine was based in Mumbai and we would travel together to Vadgaon for the case when it came up. Charmine really had to fight against a hostile magistrate. Attending a small town court in the middle of an agricultural area was a very interesting experience.
Most of the disputes were about encroachment or petty thefts of cows and goats and bail amounts were Rs500 to Rs1,000. The court looked like a cattle shed. In any case, though I was very ill with my intake of steroids, I was forced to travel to Vadgaon on an average of twice a month. On one of my trips to Mumbai en route to Vadgaon I met Churchill Alemao on flight.
Another assembly election was coming up in 1993. Churchill Alemao wanted to support the OHeraldo. I agreed as I was tired of the case plaguing me. I accompanied Churchill to the Leela Hotel of Capt Krishnan Nair at Sahar airport vicinity in Bombay. Xavier Marques was waiting there with whole army of bodyguards and sten guns. Xavier order Dossa to come to the hotel. In the presence of Churchill and me, he ordered Dossa to withdraw the case. Very reluctantly Dossa withdrew the case but not before he extracted a big apology which appeared in the OHeraldo.
Ironically, when I got married to Pankajbala Tara Patel in 2001 I discovered to my amusement that Narain Dossa’s brother, Yatin Dossa, was married to her cousin in Bombay. The horrible memories of the Vadgaon case flooded my thoughts then. Such is the life of an editor, it’s definitely not a rose garden.