IN GOA, as throughout the rest of India, law-keepers frequently turn into law-breakers. Which is why when a police constable and a lifeguard were arrested for allegedly trying to kidnap a one-and-half-year-old boy for ransom in Pernem in North Goa, on Sunday (Sept 22, 2024), this did not evoke much consternation. Now it has become passe for police constables to become criminals while they assist in capturing criminals to put them away!
Constable Nikesh Chari attached to the India Reserve Battalion of the state police and Sanjay Narevkar, a lifeguard with Drishti Marine, were held in Kargao village on Saturday, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi said.
Lifeguards are well paid with salaries ranging from Rs20,000 upwards depending on their expertise and years of uninterrupted service. Having studied only up to the fourth or fifth standard, some of them are sons of fishermen and such salaries help them to raise families. They have to report for work around 8am and be expert swimmers, able to swim against the current to rescue adults struggling in the throes of desperation before being swept out to sea.
“They attempted to kidnap the toddler while he was playing in the gallery of his house on Friday night. The duo arrived on a two-wheeler and Chari picked up the child. However, the child’s grandfather raised an alarm, prompting neighbours to rush there. They caught Chari but Narvekar managed to flee,” Dalvi said.
A year or two ago, a constable had brutally assaulted a complainant inside the Margao Town Police Station on the ground floor and this report was carried as a lead story in the local newspapers. The police are notorious for fabricating false cases against political rivals of those in power.
The police in Goa as throughout the country are not supposed to take orders from the local MLA or the minister. They have to take orders only from their immediate superior — but this is the theoretical aspect. The practical aspect is that lower rung policemen like constables, join the force armed with recommendation letters from their local MLA, and are keen to repay these favours when the opportunity arises. Also, though they may deny it, caste does play a role in promoting constables to the post of police sub-inspector. For this, these constables have to answer a written test conducted by the Goa Public Service Commission.
After a prosecutor submitted his opinion to the SP of police (South) in a criminal case, the police have replied under the Right to Information Act that “there is no such information available in this office” which has been signed by the SP (South) Sunita Sawant, who has just been rewarded with a President’s police medal. She is the first police inspector promoted to the post of DySP and now SP without being from the IPS cadre. The post of SP is normally reserved for those from the IPS cadre.
This is one of the reasons why there is a high rate of acquittals when criminals are charge sheeted and the case goes to court. Assistant public prosecutors do not want to pull up PSI who do shoddy investigation, which is why a certain APP was promoted to PP despite complaints about him to the director of prosecutions that he had given wrong advice to the complainant.
The so-called encounter death of the Badlapur rape accused, charged with raping two minor school girls, is a case in point. The man was employed as a janitor in the school and was being escorted to the Taloja jail when Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said he snatched the weapon of a police constable and shot at a police man. This story seems implausible because four policemen were accompanying this accused in a police vehicle and it is impossible for an accused to snatch a revolver, unfold the clip, remove the safety catch, then aim and shoot all within a second or two. This question was raised as a lead story in “Free Press Journal” and the Bombay high court judges also asked for the call data records of the escorting policemen.
However, as in the past, it is unlikely that the escorting policemen may face severe departmental action because it is was a “fake” encounter; the order to eliminate the accused must have come from a minister or someone very high up in the chain of command. Perhaps this accused knew too much and that is why he had to be eliminated in a staged “fake” encounter.
Be that as it may, with the former DGP of Goa, Jaspal Singh, being shunted out in disgrace after he used his clout to get a house demolished in Assagao, the wrong message is sent down to the lower cadres which include those from the police inspectors downwards. A former IGP, Sunil Garg, was accused of demanding Rs5 lakh as a bribe from a trader, Munnalal Halwai, to register an FIR in a cheating case involving several crore rupees. The case is still dragging on in the Supreme Court.
So, drugs, tourism, land grabbing with the occasional eve-teasing or molestation of women, continue unabated along the coastal belt in north Goa such as Calangute- Anjuna-Vagator-Baga-Arossim, etc. Late at night when the psychedelic lights are turned on at Calangute beach, women walk along the seashore soliciting domestic and foreign tourists to “come have a good time.”
When all this goes on, it is hardly surprising that a constable of the Goa Police joined hands with a lifeguard to kidnap a toddler to demand ransom.

(Deborah Albuquerque holds the BCom, CAIIB, and LLM degree, and is a practising advocate of the Bombay High Court.)