WHY doesn’t the Home Minister, Mr Ravi Naik hand the probe into the police-drug peddler nexus to the CBI when even the ad hoc House Committee on Home recommended it? The monsoon session of the Assembly witnessed persistent opposition demand for a CBI probe into the affair.

It is intriguing why the government is unwilling to concede the demand. Mr Naik on Wednesday came out with a caveat: the case could be given to the CBI only if there was substantial evidence. Obviously the question arises why the CBI should be handed over the case if the Goa police on its own could manage to get access to evidence? But the reality is the Goa police is not doing justice to it. The Home Minister’s statement is not in conformity with the earlier stand of the government. After a month of the exposure of the police-drug peddler nexus and the arrest of some allegedly implicated police officers, the state government did not order a thorough probe into the racket for the reason that the Goa police and the government were yet to find a senior officer not associated with the Anti-Narcotics Cell to head the probe. Significantly, the High Court on May 26 had observed that the case may be handed over to the CBI. One thing is obvious: the racket has inter-state ramification. The players are not only from Goa. Any officer or team from the Goa police could not do justice to the probe as he would not have that wherewithal which is required in the investigation of such case. It is not yet clear that after this why is the government reluctant to hand over the case to the CBI. The nature of the racket also makes it clear that one officer cannot handle the case efficiently and bring the guilty to book. What is the guarantee that the officer from Goa police would not succumb to political pressure? The chargesheet in the Scarlet case mentions easy availability of drugs in coastal villages. Hashish, charas, cocaine, Ecstacy, Catamine, LSD, etc are all available. The state governance does not tire of its claim of introducing transparency as far as possible in their functioning. But the attitude of the government on the police-drug peddler nexus does not inspire confidence. For a transparent and meaningful investigation it is imperative that the government should hand over the case to the CBI.