No estimate of drug trade volume in Goa: Police

PANAJI - The police do not have an estimate of the quantum of illicit drug trade in Goa.

“I do not have any estimate of the drug trade in Goa,” Director General of Police (DGP) Bhimsain Bassi said Friday, responding to a question on volume of drug trade in the state. He was speaking at the annual crime review press conference at the police headquarters here.

“The state of Goa is not a producer nor a point of transit. Goa is a victim state. People push drugs for use here,” Bassi said, adding that police “would not allow the drug peddlers to sit peacefully”.

Bassi said that the fact that the anti narcotics cell of the state police had seized drugs worth in excess of Rs.1 crore (Rs.10 million) in 2009 proved that the police were clamping down on the narcotics trade.

Bassi’s comments come on the heels of a report by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) which claimed that Goa had emerged as a hot spot for narcotics trade in India. The 2008 annual report had called Goa a “hash destination”.

Both the state home minister Ravi Naik and Bassi have rubbished the NCB report. While Naik said two weeks ago that Goa was drug free, Bassi has said the NCB report need not reflect ground realities in the state.

The drug trade in Goa has been the focus of international media attention ever since British teenager Scarlett Keeling was raped and murdered in 2008, after being administered a cocktail of drugs.

The death of 25-year-old Bangalore girl Meha Bahuguna, due to suspected drug overdose at the Sunburn dance festival in December last year, also brought the issue of drug trade in sharp focus.