Goan rhapsody continues…..

All we did was to deploy a police picket at the point where the dirt track branched off the Morjim–Tiracol road. The instructions given to our men were to stop any vehicle approaching the picket and ask its passengers to show their identification papers or their passports. As the checking commenced, news of police presence spread like wildfire in the rave party community of Goa. Vehicles bringing revellers to the party were seen taking U-turns and fleeing. The party was called off, much to the chagrin of the MLA.

He called me, demanding, ‘How can you do this? I will report you to the CM.’

I replied, ‘We were nowhere close to your property. All that the police were doing was checking travel documents to detect foreigners staying beyond their visa period.’

That was the last I heard from him.

In March 2006, I had another bizarre experience. We received specific information from a central intelligence agency about a terrorist who was on his way to Goa from Mumbai by train, with plans of causing Bali-like bombings in crowded nightclubs. Some readers may recall that barely six months earlier, on 1 October 2005, bombs exploded at two sites in southern Bali, Indonesia. The blasts claimed the lives of twenty people and injured over a 100 holidaymakers of different nationalities. A similar bombing was planned in Goa, as per the information, to scare away tourists from India and spread terror amongst the people.

A crack team of Goa Police Crime Branch rushed by road to board the Matsyagandha Express—plying between Mumbai and Ernakulum via Margaon in Goa (the train the terrorist was reportedly travelling in)—at a station before Margaon, 35 kilometres from Panaji, the capital. The terrorist, a man in his thirties, was spotted by our boys in one of the train compartments and kept under watch. Another team awaited his arrival at Margaon.  As he stepped out of the train, he was taken into custody and whisked away to a safe house.

To be continued….