Police plea to extern him to North Goa makes no sense
Outwitted in around dozen cases of desecration, the Goa police are now trying to go even harder at Francis alias Boy Pereira trying to extern him from South Goa district jurisdiction to North Goa for a period of two years. The cases against Boy have fallen like a pack of cards and caused enough embarrassment to the men in uniform. Tuesday’s decision to move for externment lacks merit and is devoid of any logic. It’s either a ploy to paint him as the big villain or simply to harass him.
On the ground the fact is that Goa police have failed miserably in proving that Francis was indeed the man behind the desecrations that rocked the state between June-July 2017. Out of the 19 cases in which Francis was chargesheeted, they were successful in getting a conviction in only one case while as many as 12 cases fell flat for lack of evidence.
The externment plea is illogical to say the least for the fact that SP Arvind Gawas finds Francis to be an individual with a serious criminal background with a history of unlawful activities attached to him. It is shameful of the SP to say this and yet not manage to prove Francis’ shady credentials before law. If this 52-year-old person can shatter the peace of a district and requires externment, the police should also explain how many persons have been in such a category since Liberation. Do the police mean to say that Francis is a rare breed of criminal who can disrupt the peace?
North Goa is a stone’s throw from South and such a small geographical change in residence cannot bring a drastic change in the lifestyle of anyone, leave alone the 52-year-old Francis. Shifting him to North Goa is likely to frustrate him and leave him more agitated. Secondly, going by the police version of the story that Francis had plans to desecrate several other religious structures across the State, does this plea to extern him to North Goa make any sense?
It is an embarrassment that the Goa police have stooped to this level in a desperate attempt to salvage their pride which has been severely dented. Defying all odds, it was the police who stuck their neck out and solely blamed Francis and nobody else for the desecrations. The entire government machinery backed the probe and even the few voices that looked beyond Francis were convincingly silenced by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Since the court has given him respite, a more sensible approach now would have been to engage him and go to the root of the ‘unlawful activities’ which police are claiming. Instead of constantly going after him and harassing him with an externment plea, police have to take the middle ground in all humility and not make a bigger villain out of Francis.
