The checkered life of a policeman

The body of a youth of Arossim, Mr. Melwyn Gomes was found near a water tank at the construction site of a hotel. The villagers of Arossim allege that the Police Inspector Mr. Jivba Dalvi who was investigating the case has deliberately tried to destroy evidence and made the case weak when it was an alleged murder, to cover up for the culprits.

The villagers, along with the priests of the local church took up the issue with the government and through a series of agitations have succeeded in getting the police to re-investigate into the death of Melwyn.

The villagers are still demanding the dismissal of the police inspector from service and are not satisfied with his suspension order. On Wednesday, the villagers blocked the road leading to prominent hotels like Park Hyatt and Heritage Village Club by barricading the road with felled coconut trees and rocks and thus affecting the flow of vehicles entering and exiting the hotels.

A few villagers along with the parish priests met the Director General of Police at Panaji and submitted a memorandum demanding dismissal of the police inspector. The moral of this story is that in Goa, even routine affairs of investigation into murder cases by police officers need public intervention and agitations and morchas.

Otherwise, the police will take the easier and less cumbersome route of declaring murder cases as suicides after accepting a sizeable “consideration” from the accused. It was evident to the villagers that Melwyn was murdered in connection with affairs related to the hotel management.

And the police inspector Jivba Dalvi is known to favour all five star hotels in the region. In fact, a major part of his career as a police sub-inspector included posting only in this region. His wedding reception was held in Hotel Hyatt.

Ha has a huge bungalow at Margao. When the vigilance department had raided his house and added up his assets, they were found disproportionate to his known sources of income and was duly placed under suspension.

Within days, he managed to get himself reinstated with all honours, and thereafter got promoted. The script of the present story may also carry on along the same lines. He will soon be reinstated and posted back in Colva until his next promotion.

This unfortunately is the state of affairs in our paradise state of Goa.