A COLLECTIVE of rent-a-bike operators in Goa, India, has resolved to boycott Nigerians and not accept their business, two days after a mob of Nigerians blocked a national highway and attacked locals and policemen.
Spokesperson for the rent-a-bike operators in north Goa, Jalesh Raut, said that they had also put up signs all over Mapusa, a town 12 kms from Panaji, which says “No to drugs and No to Nigerians”.
“We have decided not to rent out two wheelers to Nigerians after their attack on locals and police Thursday. They give us good business, but they cannot be beating our own people and policemen,” Raut said.
Rent-a-bike is a unique scheme started by the Goa government a few years ago where tourists can rent a two wheeler. The bikes cost about Rs.250 per day and there are around 14,000 such vehicles.
It was these bikes which the protesting Nigerians used to first overtake a police hearse van, smash the vehicle and forcibly extract the body of their murdered compatriot, Obina Obiwesi, before blockading National Highway 17.
They were demanding the presence of their ambassador, claiming that Nigerians were being targeted by a local narcotics gang operating in Goa. They also claimed that the police were specifically targeting them on the instructions of the local drug gang.
Raut also led a rally of rent-a-bike owners from Mapusa to Porvorim on the national highway urging residents not to lease houses or vehicles to Nigerians.
“The Nigerians pose an open challenge to Goa. If 50 Nigerians can block a road for hours and even intimidate the police, something has to change in Goa,” he said.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar ,speaking on the protest said the police could not rein in the protesters because of their huge sizes.
“They are huge and aggressive. Some of them are seven feet tall. It would take at least 100 of our policemen to handle a crowd of 50 Nigerians,” Parrikar told reporters, when he was asked why the police force did not make any effort for nearly an hour to clear National Highway-17 that was blocked by heavily built Nigerians armed with hockey sticks, bamboos and knives.
The Nigerians were demanding that the autopsy on Obina Obiwesi be conducted in the presence of the Nigerian ambassador in India.
The murder, the Nigerian protestors claimed, had been committed by a gang called Chapora boys, a notorious underground drug mafia operating in north Goa, and the police had been unwilling to act against the alleged murderers, who were locals. They blocked the highway by dumping the corpse bang in the middle of the road after smashing open the police hearse and extracting the body from it.
The brazen manner in which Goa Police officers were cowered down in public by a group of 50 well-built Nigerians (the mob later swelled to nearly 200) and Parrikar’s continued dogged defence of the state police has evoked an extremely strong reaction in the social media as well as among people across sections.
The mob not only threatened and warded off over 20 policemen, including Superintendent of Police (North) Priyanka Kashyap, but also told the latter off in a verbal duel.
The intimidation was such that Parrikar, himself claimed that he saw one “herculesque Nigerian” who he believed would need 10 Goa policemen to control.
“He was nearly seven feet. He would have needed at least 10 policemen to control,” said Parrikar, who is also the state’s home minister.
The chief minister also said that he had inherited a corrupt and ineffective police force that had been reduced to shambles by the previous Congress-led regime, whose home minister Ravi Naik and kin now face charges of being involved in the drug trade.
The incident has triggered an avalanche of reactions.
“The police department is scared of Nigerians. I am ashamed to say this,” said Michael Lobo, a legislator of the ruling BJP.
Independent legislator Rohan Khaunte, whose constituency of Porvorim was host to the high-voltage drama, said that the public came to the rescue of the police instead of it being the other way around.
“The situation was mishandled. Action should be taken against the SP North. Locals in fact helped the police and not the other way around,” he said.
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