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Crime Two Goan ministers in police's 'goonda list' Panaji, Oct 24 IANS Two
cabinet ministers in the
Congress-led coalition
government in Goa figure in a
list of bad characters and proclaimed offenders compiled by the
state police, a
newspaper report said
Friday. An exclusive
report in Sunaparant, Goa's only Konkani daily, claims that
Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate and
Urban Development Minister Joaquim Alemao figure in the 'goonda list'
list of known criminals of the
state police. The
newspaper, which has reproduced a scanned image of the
list dated 2000, also
reports that Rudolf Fernandes, son of
Congress legislator
Victoria Fernandes has been listed as a goonda in the
list, which was put together in 2000 by the Criminal
Investigation Department CID of the Goa
Police. The story says that the
list of criminals was compiled by the
police due to "an increasing
trend in
crime, noticed during the year 2000". "As such a need was felt to update the concerned, with
information on goondas,
history sheeters and bad characters so as to take necessary preventive measures and keep them under
surveillance," reads an excerpt from a covering letter signed by then Superintendent of
Police CID I.D. Shukla. The
report claims that in response to an RTI right to
information query asking the
police to furnish the last two updated
lists of criminals compiled by them, the two
district superintendents
Bosco George North and Shekhar Prabhudessai
South, have claimed in
writing that "no such
information was available with them". When IANS contacted Goa Inspector General of
Police Kishen Kumar, he refused to
comment on the issue. "You
talk to concerned SPs. I
will not
talk on this. The
media is going overboard," said Kumar. Speaking to this correspondent
Friday, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat did not deny the existence of the goonda
list. "It must have been done when I was not the chief minister," he said. Atanasio alias Babush Monserrate, the father of Rohit, the main accused in the rape of a 14-year-old
German girl a couple of weeks ago, has also been involved in various criminal offences in the past. Earlier this year, the
United Goans Democratic
Party UGDP legislator led a mob and attacked Panaji
police station, and also manhandled the policemen on duty. Incidentally, the
list also names Aires Rodrigues, the counsel for the
German girl's
mother who has accused Rohit and Alemao's nephew of raping her daughter. Alemao is the brother of former chief minister
Churchill Alemao, and was earlier detained by the Goa
Police under the
National Security Act. --Indo-Asian
News Service maya/vdm/dg 462
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