NSUI anti-drug campaigner attacked

PANAJI - Unidentified people Friday assaulted a National Students Union of India (NSUI) leader who had complained to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi about the failure of the police to probe the police-politician-drug mafia nexus in Goa.

Sunil Kauthankar, the state president of the NSUI, was driving to Bicholim town, 25 km from here, when some men riding a motorcycle threw a huge stone at his car’s windshield. The stone smashed the windshield and hit the student leader’s face, lacerating it severely.

“The incident occurred at 7.45 p.m. and the police had not reached the spot until 8.45 p.m.,” Kauthankar’s friend Anup Volvoikar, told IANS over the phone.

“We were on our way to an anti-drugs campaign, when the unknown persons travelling on a Pulsar bike hurled the stone near the driver’s end of the windshield and it badly hit Sunil on his face,” Anup said, adding that he was receiving treatment and was unable to speak.

A senior police official said: “We have sent a police control van to investigate the incident. The injured person is currently under treatment.”

Speaking to reporters on July 14, Kauthankar had said that the police were harassing him, a day after he had demanded a probe by a federal agency to the drug nexus, in which state Home Minister Ravi Naik’s son Roy has been linked by an Israeli newspaper.

Kauthankar had launched a signature campaign in Goa demanding a federal probe and on Monday had met Rahul Gandhi to inform him about the inability of the Congress-led coalition government to effectively probe the nexus.