Panaji, January 30: Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik today said his son”s name has been unnecessarily dragged into drug trade and he is a victim of mistaken identity.
He said his son Roy Naik has been misunderstood with Roy Fernandes, who is into drug trade. “I have enough evidence to show that one Roy Fernandes was in drug business with the blessings of then (BJP) Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and his MLAs,” Naik told reporters here.
Naik said his son”s name has been unnecessarily dragged into the controversy by political elements who are unhappy with the state police”s crackdown on narcotics dealers.
The minister claimed several BJP leaders were getting protection money from drug dealers, but this practice stopped ever since he took over the reigns of the Home Ministry.
Roy Naik”s name came into focus after Swedish model Lucky Farmhouse, former girlfriend of Israeli drug dealer Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, last year alleged that he frequented their residence in Anjuna near here.
“Some politicians and persons influenced by the Opposition parties tried to gain publicity on the drug issue,” Naik said, adding he had referred the case to CBI in November.
To a query, he said Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava delayed the handing over of the drug-police nexus probe to CBI. “I had cleared the file in November. You can ask Chief Secretary why he delayed handing over of the probe to CBI.”
The nexus was exposed through two sting operations in last one year. In the first, Atala was shown bragging about his alleged links with the police. Seven policemen were arrested after the video went public.
A month back, two foreign girls had exposed Police Sub-Inspector Sunil Guddler allegedly pushing drugs.
———PTI