Goa minister unfazed by drug mafia connections
Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik has been under fire recently from several quarters, including foreigners who are not even residents in India.
The Opposition BJP has him in their sights over allegations of drug mafia links.
A Sanatan Sanstha extremist, arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Monday as the key man behind the Goa blast, has accused Naik of “fabricating evidence” against him and his right-wing organisation.
And earlier this week, Fiona MacKeown, too, used her trial court appearance to lash out against Naik, who had criticised her for leaving her minor daughter alone in Goa.
Testifying in Scarlett’s case, MacKeown accused the home minister of running a drug mafia on Goa’s beaches with his son Roy. She admitted she had no proof and her allegations were based on hearsay.
But her unsubstantiated suspicions had an electrifying effect in the Goa Legislative Assembly and the British media, adding more taint to the already sordid picture of a paradise in peril.
None of it seems to bother the man in the spot. Accusing his political opponents of whipping up a frenzy over nothing, Naik said there was “not a single case” against him or his sons.
“I never allow my sons to interfere in my department,” he told Deccan Herald insisting that “reckless” allegations were being floated to deliberately mislead the public.
In a written statement placed before the state Assembly on Friday, Naik said investigations had found links between officials of the Anti-Narcotics Cell and Israeli drug dealer Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, who is in jail. The Union Home Ministry had been approached to send a police team to Sweden to record the statement of a Swedish model Lucky Farmhouse.
Farmhouse, who also goes by the name of Lucky Mangarda Amori according to her website, claims she uploaded video footage on YouTube that showed Atala boasting about his Goa police connections. Naik said except for email contact, no one had yet spoken to the Swedish woman.
