WHO WILL SAVE THESE NIGERIAN IN INDIA?

 

It was gathered that police in India on Saturday began a crackdown on Nigerians staying in various parts of the coastal belt in North Goa like Calangute, Anjuna, Baga, Sinquerim, Siolim and Mapusa , according to the source, over 100 Nigerians had gone berserk and created ruckus while protesting the death of their compatriot, who was found brutally murdered in Parra, and clashed with police and the locals damaging public property and causing tension in the area. The tension had later spread to Porvorim area on the NH 17 where the Nigerians blocked the hearse van carrying the deceased’s corpse and placed it on the road and blocked the highway. Police have altogether arrested 57 Nigerians and slapped various charges against them for assaulting cops, causing destruction and damaging public property and attempt to murder.

 “Since Saturday morning, police officials have started visiting lodges and are asking about the Nigerians’ presence. However, this exercise of checking lodges has not been much successful as Nigerians don’t stay in lodges or hotels as the hotel staff insist on personal identity or passport details. Nigerians usually share rooms in private houses,” said a source in the police department.

 Meanwhile, in connection with the Thursday incident, which occurred at Porvorim over the murder of the Nigerian national, the Mapusa police have said that the post mortem on the body of the deceased Nigerian has been slated for Monday as the deceased has no relatives in the state and nobody came forward to claim the body.

Moreover,a Nigerian living in Goa region who refused to identify himself said that  “We protested on the roads because the police refused to take details of the killers, which we were trying to give them. There was a communication gap initially and the lower category police officers did not listen to us. All we asked them was that we wanted to check the body of our murdered brother as we feared the killers could have planted drugs on his corpse to make him look like a drug peddler. We wanted a proper panchanama to be done before the body could be sent for post mortem,”

“We wanted two of our people to accompany the body and be present during the post mortem to ensure that there was no hanky panky. But the police refused prompting some hot-blooded Nigerians to take the law in their own hands,” he added.

On Saturday, not many Nigerians were seen in Parra, Nagoa-Arpora and Calangute. Many have speculated that they may have fled fearing a possible backlash from locals, seething in anger after Thursday’s incident. Incidentally, virtually none of the very few Nigerians seen in Parra were willing to comment saying it would make little difference, as locals were already biased in their assessment of the Nigerian community.

Another Nigerian, however expressed unhappiness and regret over “Whatever happened at Parra, and Porvorim in particular, was very bad. The incident of pulling out the dead body and throwing it on the road was sheer madness and was an uncultured act on part of our angry fellow Nigerians. Their actions on Thursday are creating problems for us and have unnecessarily tarnished our image,”

“Not all Nigerians are bad, as is being projected by a few locals. Some of us are here in Goa for legitimate purposes and we have enjoyed the hospitality of the Goans. There are many wonderful people who refuse to brand the entire Nigerian community as troublemakers or drug peddlers. There have been allegations that some Goa Police officials are involved in drug trade. Should we then assume that the entire Goa police force is dabbling in drugs,” asked the Nigerian.