GOA: COLLEGE STUDENT CAUGHT IN DRUG RAID

Ribandar (Goa)

A day after Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar made a remark that there is no much proliferation of drugs in colleges, the Crime Branch arrested a final year commerce student in possession of narcotics.

Ganeshan Gajinkar, a third year BCOM student in the PES College at Farmagudi – institute run by former Congress chief minister Ravi Naik – was caught with 100 gms ganja worth Rs 20,000. The boy was caught red handed near his home village at Raia last evening.

While the seizure is a small quantity, the arrest of this student has raised eyebrows over drugs nexus reaching out to students too.

At a State Youth Parliament, an event organised by the Goa Legislative Assembly, Parrikar had said, “I personally do not believe that there is much proliferation (of drugs) in colleges.”

On the overall narcotics trade in Goa, he said a crackdown on the drug network in the state is going on and it will continue till drugs are out of sight. Around 170 people were arrested for drug peddling last year.

The Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights had recently expressed apprehensions on the increasing incidents of students linking to drugs like crime. In a draft report on ‘Mental Health Policy for Children & Adolescents for the State of Goa,’ the Commission observed that there is an increasing trend of cannabis use in private as well as government schools and college students in Goa, not only in coastal places but also in the interiors of Goa.

Sitting BJP legislator Michael Lobo and former chief minister Pratapsing Rane have often raised the matter on various platform and Legislative Assembly, while also seeking a massive crackdown to ensure youth in no way get attracted to drugs activities.

TEAM TNV