After the IAS officer's row in UP, a senior IPS officer in Goa has now come in the firing line of a ruling BJP minister who publicly berated him for acting like a "goon" and cracking down on rave parties, claiming it had led to drop in tourist inflow.
Using the occasion to inaugurate a coastal police station to embarrass Superintendent of Police Vijay Singh, State Art and Culture minister Dayanand Mandrekar said the raids led by him on rave parties has hit tourism in coastal belts.
"I don't know what energy and what motive this SP had behind raiding beach parties. He was acting like a goon while raiding them," Mandrekar said in the presence of senior police officers, including Director General of Police Kishan Kumar and others. Singh was also present among the audience.
The minister's comments comes within days of IAS officer Durga Sakthi Nagpal being suspended by the UP government ostensibly for ordering demolition of a wall of an under-construction mosque.
28-year-old Nagpal, who hit the spotlight for taking on the powerful sand mafia, has since been chargesheeted. The Akhilesh Yadav government has defended its decision and asserted that there will be no revocation of the suspension order, a demand made by opposition parties as also IAS and IPS officers' association who batted for Nagpal.
Mandrekar said Singh, who held office in Porvorim, near Panaji, should have stuck to his jurisdiction and not have gone beyond it.
"What business he had to do in the coastal belt ?" Mandrekar asked.
The IPS officer was transferred early this year from North district and shifted to Traffic cell after he cracked down on drug dens in the state. He was responsible for raiding several notorious shacks in the belt of Anjuna, where cases related to narcotics were booked.
Mandrekar also questioned why coastal security needs to be strengthened. "Why do we need to concentrate on the coastal security when terrorists can come from any direction," he asked.
