As the plot thickens, police enact high drama! BY HERALD REPORTER PANJIM, MARCH 10 - The arrest of Tariq Ahmed Battlo in Margao has opened a Pandora's Box as many questions remain unanswered in the case. While the police claimed that the Srinagar man was apprehended at the Margao Railway Station on March 10, highly placed sources in the police department told Herald that the man was detained by the police a week ago. He was being interrogated by the bigwigs of the Goa police in the last few days.
To questions from media persons earlier this week, top police officers had denied that any terrorists had been arrested. Tariq was however arrested today for the record. Interestingly, a Herald staffer had received a call at 2 pm informing that a Srinagar man had been held with RDX. But the police told media that the police "swooped" on Tariq at the Margao Railway Station at 8.45 pm. This only appears to have been dramatised by the police to record his arrest apparently to cover up for loose ends. What was astonishing was why the police went to the press within 25 minutes of the arrest. Normally, the police would never officially announce the arrest of drug pusher or a criminal leave alone terrorist, in such haste. Time is normally required to complete the paper work which takes lot of time as statements of witnesses are to be recorded. Incidentally, the chief minister Pratapsing Rane too reportedly mentioned to some persons during his visit to the riot-hit Curchorem three days back that a militant has been apprehended in Goa. The embarrassed police were left with no other option but to deny it as they had not shown his arrest on paper. Another interesting statement of the South Goa SP is that the seizure has no relation to the communal disturbance in Curchorem. This is true only because the man was detained on Friday last, hours before the communal attack first occurred in Curchorem. It is not uncommon in other parts of the country as well to detain such militants for some days before showing their arrest on record. ~(^^)~ Avelino