Goa Police irresolute in drug mafia case: Swedish model

PANAJI - A Swedish model, who is the main witness in the probe into the alleged police-politician-drug mafia nexus here, says the Goa Police are not keen to collect from her video footage linking a state politician to a narcotics cartel.

Lucky Farmhouse, 33, whose spycam videos have exposed a police-drug mafia nexus resulting in the arrest of seven policemen and an Israeli drug dealer, says in an e-mail interview that the Goa Crime Branch officials were simply not interested in contacting her when she was in Mumbai earlier this month.

Farmhouse returned to Sweden earlier this week.

“I am back in Sweden now. Police have not given me any date to be in Goa. They only contacted me once and asked for my Mumbai address. I told them about my travel plans,” said Farmhouse, who is the former girlfriend of Israeli drug dealer Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, who has been arrested.

The model, who worked as an extra in several Bollywood films during her Mumbai stay earlier this month, said that she was willing to change her travel plans and return to India if police wanted to question her and pick up more clinching video footage of senior police officers and a senior politician.

Deputy Inspector General of Police R.S. Yadav could not be contacted for comment. Yadav however has maintained that Farmhouse had not contacted the police despite requests to do so.

Allowing Farmhouse to go back to Sweden without making any efforts to meet her bolsters allegations made by Goa’s opposition parties and some policemen that the Crime Branch was sabotaging the investigation into the case.

The alleged sabotage is aimed at saving high-ranking policemen and ruling party politicians involved in the drug trade, they claim.

On Wednesday, the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court had directed the state government to state whether it was considering handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The government Friday told the court said that a CBI probe was not needed at the moment.

The state government’s decision against handing over the probe to the CBI, comes despite recommendations from the police and state home ministry officials for doing so.

The ministry favoured a CBI probe because local politicians and policemen are suspected to be involved in the case.