Comrades in crime: Police reporting
Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
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This young journalist has repeatedly shown his ability to come up with that
unusual story that everybody else overlooked, only to cause ripples in Goa
and beyond. His hard work, uncharacteristic honesty in telling the story
as-it-is, and young-man-in-a-hurry quality stand out strongly. These
approach have won him the respect of readers in as much measure as the ire
of those who would not like the media to tell the whole truth.
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This chapter is being written much after the deadline
set. My apologies. But generally deadlines have
traditionally slipped by in the place of employment
many of us earlier used to share. At present, I am
dispensing my duties as a reporter at the Herald. So
here, I make it amply clear, that my licence for
unbridled freedom is at present indebted to the firm,
where I draw a salary from. Anyway without delving more
time and space on Utopian and impractical ideals as
freedom of the press, I shall proceed further.
My few years of covering the crime-beat in Goa, have
been marked a considerably easy tenure. And press
freedom, rather the lack of it, has been one of the
reasons for my being fairly successful at the beat.
With reporters from newspapers like The Navhind Times
(manned by any editor) and The Gomantak Times, recently
under Pramod Khandeparkar, as rivals, it has been
rather easy to come up with exclusives. Especially
because, the two competing newspapers do not seem to
carry news which scalds. And when they do manage to
rustle up some exclusives, it is more often in form of
some sort of a balm to cover the wounds of the
Establishment. Or a day or two late.
A few aspects of this deduction could be explained by
interactions I have had amongst journalists from both
the newspapers. Press freedom and ideals in most
newspaper organizations take a back-seat. In The
Navhind Times especially, that's way back.
Editors and crime -- what's the connection?
With the death of former Director General of Police
Rajinder Singh Sahaye, Goan editors (most of them,
anyway) have lost a great patron. Let me illustrate the
extent of the warm hold late Mr Sahaye had over our
enlightened mandarins.
I was in the employ of The Navhind Times some years
back. Press notes handed out to newspaper offices are
meant for lowly hacks to tackle. Lowly hacks meaning,
either sub-editors or reporters, who generally gloss
over them.
Following a press conference addressed by DGP Sahaye, I
came back to office one evening and filed the story. I
was then told that a press note, which had been issued
at the conference, had already been composed by the
editor and that I need not file the story.
Surprising? Not so.
The DGP had made a few important comments, other than
those, which had been mentioned in the press-note. So I
altered the already composed press note, to fit in
these changes. The next day, an irked Mr Sinha, who is
anyway a man of few words, did not have very pleasant
words to say about this. The press note, one should
note, had been composed to ensure the inclusion of some
adulatory phrases in the first paragraph.
Later, Sahaye was controversially transferred from Goa
and he expired after a few months. Think that was his
last press conference I had attended before he was
transferred out of Goa. His transfer was followed by
attempts made by a section of the editors to portray
that the state's top cop was transferred due to his
crusade against the 'matka' lobby. Whether he hated
matka or not I have not been able to ascertain....
(More information on this issue can be sourced from DIG
Karnal Singh or then DIG and presently Joint
Commissioner Crime Branch Delhi Qamar Ahmed, both whom
were then going hammer and tongs against DGP Sahaye.)
Then, take the case of Deputy Inspector General of
Police Karnal Singh. This man cannot be called an
enigma. That is because his his intentions are so very
articulate. For example, this man wanted the Bharatiya
Janata Party to win the last assembly elections. Forget
the leverage of the Dayanand Social Security Scheme, it
was Karnal Singh's khaki force which was largely
responsible for the BJP ride to power.
Until recently, Karnal Singh, the chief ministers
point-man in the police department, was normally the
one-stop shop for journos for daily information. In
comparison to Karnal Singh's clout in the police
department over the past few years, the last two
Directors General of Police were mere senior officers
biding their time until retirement, holding their hands
over a soft fire in their respective offices to keep warm.
Karnal Singh may be responsible for a lot of
not-so-pleasant issues. But the alleged instance of
insensitiveness, where Mr Singh categorically stated
that a recent much-publicised rape victim's hymen was
intact, but possibility of a two-finger insertion was
possible, was actually an issue that Mr Singh was
wrongly lynched for. This writer was present at the
press conference then. It was only after persistent
questioning by reporters, that Mr Singh to come out
with an in verbatim response, reading it out from the
medical report.
This was quite unlike the press conference of an
unabashedly media savvy cop Superintendent of Police
Inder Dev Shukla, involving the sexuality of star
athlete Pratima Gaonkar who had committed suicide in
mysterious circumstances.
There are other issues that come up repeatedly in the
contentious relationship between police and
journalists.
Today, a journalist inadvertently narrated to me a
story from the Jataka tales, with a moral vis a vis a
peculiar situation in his office, a local
English-language newspaper. Endless hours have been
consumed by journalists especially at Cafe Prakash as
to how an editor could allow his dupester reporter to
carry on, despite complaints of cheating filed against
the reporter at the local police station. It is another
story that the officer Police Sub Inspector Raut
Dessai, who was handling the complaint, was also duped
off a few thousand rupees by the same journo.
Sorry, I have digressed. This is how the story goes....
A she-monkey is trapped in the middle of the flooding
river. As the water level rises, she keeps pushing her
little one upwards away from the watery jaws of death.
But as soon as the water reaches her nose, and keeps
swelling further, the mother shoves her little one
below the water on the bed, and stands on it, in order
to gain additional height that could possible allow her
to survive.
The story's original moral is the survival of the
fittest. But I think one should give the listener some
liberty enough to alter it a bit. The moral which fits
the bill here, I think, is survival of the canniest.
And Goa is no more alien to such philosophies, which
generally appear to have a genetic similarity with
Bihar and the other cow-belt states, where the motto of
survival is, Jiski lathi uski bhais (He who wields the
stick, own the buffalo).
(For more information on this issue, one could contact
just about any journo from The Navhind Times)
We could shift to the equation between the Police Press
Relations Officer (PRO) and the media.
If a layman is of the opinion that this is a source
where the news from the police department actually
flows from, it is a very incorrect assumption. For, in
the Goa Police, the office of the PRO is that of a
sorting department. The juiciest morsels extracted from
the reams of wireless messages and kept under lock and
key, while the unwanted and sanitized thrash is offered
to media representatives.
No complaints there. That is the PROs brief.
But if there was one PRO a few years back who managed
this with elan, it was Deputy Superintendent of Police
Apa Teli. This man had generated such goodwill amongst
mediamen, that the police department should really
offer him a police medal, solely for ensuring that the
image of the police in the media remained somber for
half a decade or so.
Evenings at Mr Teli's office comprised of the
invariable cup of tea and on several occasions pakodas
from Cafe Real. Mr Teli's strategy was to ensure that
discussions over such sessions never focused around any
crime-related events for the day. And he ensured that
his agenda stuck. And then there was also the annual
get-together at one of the city hotels where
liquor-happy journos abounded. Almost no journo could
say no to Mr Teli. The same was the case with the liquor.
Things they say were even better during Umesh Gaonkar's
tenure as the officer in charge of the Panjim town
police station, with several weekend outings for
journalists covering crime. Umesh, who is now promoted
as a Deputy Superintendent of Police, has kept up his
press management tactics in Margao. Correspondents
often walk up to him and complain that they had lost
their purse and Umesh readily obliges, not with the
purse, but at least with some money. (For more
information please contact the late 'eighties and early
'nineties language-loving journo clique and primitive
Margao based correspondents-cum-teachers)
This uneasy equation also has its own kind of 'freak
shows'.
A journo attached to a Marathi newspaper, who belongs
to the Somnath Zuwarkar school of thought -- one of
those few loyal sycophants who refused to turn sides in
favour of Babush Monserrate -- was involved in an
embarrassing incident a couple of years ago. Shopping
in the departmental store in the capital run by the Goa
Marketing Federation, he tried flicking a tooth-paste
and slipped it inside his pocket. His sleight of the
hand was noticed by an employee, and was promptly
reported to the manager, who hauled him up and informed
the Panjim police about the incident.
When the reporter revealed his professional identity
and explained that he too owed obeisance to Somnath
Zuwarkar, the complaint was duly withdrawn. Another of
Mr Zuwarkar's cronies was in charge of running the
marketing federation then. The journo is now dubbed as
"Colgate" and he really does not bristle with joy when
he is called by the name. (For more information on this
please contact Police Inspector Mahesh Gaonkar)
But that's not all. Journalists pimping for the police
is also not very uncommon. Pardon the word pimping, but
there are times when the lines between both the
professions blur.
Only recently, a South Goa correspondent for an
English-language local newspaper, who also manages a
newspaper agency in the region, was the force who
thwarted Police Sub Inspector Jivba Dalvi's likely
suspension after the latter had played 'funny' while
investigating a theft case. Incidentally, the
complainant in this case was Vithaldas Hegde, a popular
persona amongst journalists and policemen alike.
The Baina police outpost is one of the more lucrative
postings for police officers and a few select
journalists. Lucrative in terms of the hafta streaming
in from the bars and brothels in the area. A journalist
attached to Goa's largest-selling Marathi daily, did a
one-up on the police sub inspector in-charge posted
there. The journo 'enforced' a system where he would
collect a regular hafta from the Baina police outpost,
in return for blanking out any damaging news emanating
from Baina.
One more nugget about Baina: a few hard-core journos
based there have some commercial sex workers on call,
just the way some cops do. The second most assured
source of income for cops is the hafta from matka
agents. Here too a few journos have not lagged too far
behind. A long-standing correspondent for an
English-language newspaper, who has been mentioned
earlier in this chapter, runs two such gaddas located
opposite the Margao police station, where matka bets
are accepted, even amidst the worst of police
crack-downs on gambling outlets.
While writing this, I may appear to be very partial to
the Margao journos and cops. But reality is that the
place is just so colourful. Here's another one. A
journalist's spouse posted as a head constable at the
Margao police station is audacious enough to accepts
matka bets in the police station building.
QUOTE UNCOUTH: One of SP Shukla's latest pursuits is
philosophy. Once upon a time, it was English. A Deputy
Superintendent of Police never tires of this tale. Mr
Shukla, who loves positive interactions with the media
and issuing press notes, had just typed out one such
press note and called the DySP in. "Maine press note
draft kiya hai. Aap jara isme grammer bhar do" (I have
drafted a press note. Could you please fit the grammer in?)
chapter 20:
Of sports... and sports journalism
Cyril D'CunhaCyril D'Cunha is a figure hardly anybody in post-1961
Goa journalism would not know. While editors came and
went, he stayed on at the desk, at the Navhind Times --
and contributing to many outstation journals, as
outlined towards the end of this essay. Earlier, he
began his journalistic career in Bombay. He is highly
rated for his knowledge on Goan sports, as also
acknowledged by a recent book on Goan football.
It has been such a long while and so much that has
happened since, that it has become difficult to
recollect everything in the sports that one has been
connected with in Goa chronologically. In fact, in what
follows, I have mentioned a few dates, which I can
connect as correctly as per my records and memory. But
in many cases, I've avoided being date-specific, only
because I'm not sure of them.
The events were of different hues; but they all stamped
their mark on the Goa scene in many ways and only the
mean-spirited will fail to appreciate this
cross-section of happenings. Agreed, we are not living
in a state of hedonists, strictly speaking; yet
criticisms, in any form, generally do hurt. It's an
universal phenomena and Goa is no exception to that.
But then, that's no reason to cringe, as after all,
nobody is picture perfect.
Mind you, I'm tracing a period when TV in Goa was an
unknown quotient, in the early 1960s. When the cliched
few Goan icons were confined only to football players
and its organisers. Athlete mates did an occasional
whizz in mention, mainly those of past glory. Hockey,
cricket and such other sports, as we see today, were
yet to establish their mark in the state, though hockey
on roller skates was played before Goa's liberation in
1961. The court at Circuit House in Panaji is still
there, even if fallen into disuse.
My account is more personal and allied to sports
activities I associated with, though I've touched on a
few others with less authenticity.
Hockey: If there is a definite whiff of the yesteryear,
particularly to my initial attention to field hockey, I
have to be excused. More memorable for me, as I
captained the first Goa hockey team at the Nationals at
Madurai and I'm proud of it.
In 1964-65, a suitable surface to play hockey was at a
premium, especially in Panaji. But there were a
dedicated lot of persons, who were not deterred by this
fact. I recollect carrying goal-posts and nets to the
mini football stadium at Caranzalem, which
unfortunately today is non-existent. This was carried
on a hand-cart, with me walking alongside, all the way
from the city to the ground there, a distance of almost
eight kilometres.
There was a lot of enthusiasm among those wanting to
play the game, with a few teams showing interest too,
especially the Navy. The late Aniceto Fernandes, one of
the foremost organisers of Goan hockey and football in
Bombay, was mainly instrumental in giving shape to
tournaments in Goa, with the help of the then Chief
Minister, Dayanand Bandodkar. He also got the Goa
Hockey Association affiliated to the All India Hockey
Federation and even succeeded in getting a
representation for Goa on the apex body.
The Dempo-Souza group in the 'sixties, decided to have
a team of their own, and we all joined in. During this
time, I also coached a number of women hockey players.
Many of my colleagues on the Dempo-Souza team are no
longer alive, but for me, they have left behind some
pleasant memories. In February 1967, Aniceto conducted
the Bandodkar Hockey Tournament and I was put in charge
of running it on behalf of the Goa Hockey Association.
Then two months later, from April 15 to 23, came the
big hockey tournament for women for the Shantilal Cup,
with me in charge of the north zone as the
selector-cum-manager. Several players who had
represented India, especially from Mysore and Bombay,
were seen in action. Bandodkar must also be credited
with creating a separate Directorate of Sports and
Youth Affairs, in 1973.
The Sports Journalists Association of Goa, founded in
1982, of which I was the founder president, did
organise a road roller-skating competition on May 8,
1983, which was a great success, as was the bullock
cart race organised at Peddem grounds in Mapusa.
Presently, hockey is in a lamentable state, with little
or no activity being held and it is more tragic because
in the past, Goans elsewhere have represented India.
Players like Leo Pinto, Walter D'Souza, Maxie Vaz,
Lawrie Fernandes, Reggie Rodrigues, John Mascarenhas
and many women internationals.
Football: Thanks to the centuries-old legacy, starting
with the presence of the British troops in Goa and the
Portuguese, both of whom had a passion for the game,
football still remained the craze in the state and it
prospered with players using the paddy fields to hone
their skills. These details I have mentioned in the
book I later published titled Soccer and Goa, on behalf
of the Government of Goa.
This enthusiasm was carried forward by leaps and
bounds, making Goa one of the most feared of states in
the country, throwing up players of repute. Both the
clubs and the Goa teams, won tournaments all over the
country, with professionalism coming in. No less credit
to the founder members of the newly constituted Goa
Football Association, which was created after
disbanding the erstwhile Association that existed
before Liberation and 1961.
Of particular note was the staging of a football match,
featuring a team of women, during the Carnival season,
on March 4, 1973, at the Police ground in Panaji,
between Eves and Adams. This was organised by us
members of the Clube Vasco da Gama, and I will stick
out my neck to say that it was the first time a match
was played with a women's team. Unless, somebody can
prove to the contrary.
Athletics: This universally acclaimed discipline as the
'mother of all games and sports', did not progress as
desired. On August 1, 1969, Prabhakar Sinari, Francisco
Braganza, Rui Carvalho, Domnic Fernandes and myself,
got together and formed the Goa Amateur Athletic
Association, which functions till today, though with
mixed results.
We did win plenty of medals at the National level, but
nothing at the international level. Among the main
drawbacks were, and still are, finance, lack of
infrastructural facilities, including grounds and a
suitable running track and of course trained officials.
The situation today is much improved, with the
government providing coaching facilities and other
incentives, especially at the school and college level.
Yet, apart from football, athletics, swimming and
taekwondo, which have brought a lot of honours to the
state in the past few years, there is little to shout
about in the other disciplines. There are a lot of
pontification made by the governments, often with
political considerations, and these have not been good
for the progress of sporting activity in Goa.
As for me, my stint in Goa has been rewarding. Being
bestowed with the prestigious and highest state award,
the Jivbadada Kerkar Award for Best Organiser for the
year 1984-85. Reporting two Olympic Games, at Montreal
and Los Angeles, the World Cup hockey at Sydney, the
World Amateur Boxing Championships in Bombay, where I
also shared the mike for the English commentary, the
Asian Games, Permit meets and Nationals in the country,
in the capacity of an official, have all been a great
experience, besides allowing me the opportunity to
globe trot.
One also produced and edited Goa's first sports weekly
titled Goal, in 1976-77, and later in 1996, I edited
the bilingual fortnightly Konkan Mail, both having to
be discontinued due to lack of support.
There were different reasons and circumstances for the
starting of these two publications. I had been working
as a correspondent for Sportsweek of Bombay, and the
idea of starting the Goal came from there.
With sports picking up, one felt there was scope for a
weekly focussing mainly on local sports affairs. I was
aware that in a venture of this type, I would be
requiring a lot of money, which I did not have. But
what weighed in my favour was the fact that in
partnership with a friend of mine, we had taken the
Diario da Noite press, owned by Luis de Menezes, on a
contract basis, to print a full-fledged paper the Goa Monitor,
owned by Erasmo Sequeira in 1977, under the name of
Polygot Publication, Campal.
The Goal, therefore, could be a by-product, as the
infrastructure for producing it, including the printing
staff, was in place. The only cost involved would be
the news-print for the tabloid. As for the writing
part, I was going to do most of it, while a few friends
of mine promised to write gratis. Unfortunately for us,
the Goa Monitor was forced to fold up, as Sequeira's
press staff went on strike. It also meant the premature
death of "Goal", on which one had pinned high hopes, as
it was steadily picking up in sales and, surprisingly,
even getting a few advertisements from big industrial houses.
In the case of Konkan Mail, the whole concept was born
out of a missionary zeal.
When I approached Mathias Vaz, owner of the Maureen
Printing Press, and P.M. Vaz, proprietor of Manvins
Courier Service and Manvins Hotel, with the idea of
bringing out a bilingual paper, which would contain
news catering to both English-language and Roman
Konkani readers, they immediately agreed.
Papers which published general news in Konkani, were in
Devnagri script, which many of the Catholics, specially
those in the 30+ age group, could simply not read. It
was for this section that the Konkan Mail would cater
to. While Mathias handled the entire printing, P.M.Vaz
would take care of the distribution and couriering
part, besides providing office space and the use of his
computers in his hotel, while I would handle the
editing.
The soft launch of the first copy of 18 pages, costing
Rs. 2, was done by the Member of Parliament Eduardo Faleiro,
in the city, where a few prominent citizens were the
invitees.
For the nearly four years the paper was regularly
published, there was great enthusiasm shown by the
readers. But this in itself is not enough for the
success of a paper, as any publisher will vouch,
without advertisements, which is the main revenue
provider. And that is exactly what we lacked. This
could be because of a variety of factors, including
perhaps, bad management. After several appeals to the
readers via the editorials for such revenue support
bore no results, we decided to suspend publication, as
we could no longer continue suffering losses. We still
hope to restart, provided the finance is available; but
for the moment we haven't a clue of where this money is
going to come from.
Though sports has been my first love, reporting on
sports has been an add on. Except for a brief stint on
the sports desk of the Free Press Journal, my main
grounding on the news and reporting desk was with the
Times of India, Bombay, and then on The Navhind Times
and back to the Goa page of the Times of India,
Bangalore edition, as a stringer, where I also did a
lot of sports reporting. I believe that sports
journalism helps a lot in the shaping of a good
all-round writer, simply because it gives one a free
reign to use descriptive language and a variety of
verbiage, ordinarily not suited for general reporting.
Be that as it may, I was fortunate enough to work as a
correspondent for many publications. Of particular
mention was the Indian Post, run by the Singhanias in
Bombay and edited by that time by S. Nihal Singh. The
paper was to run into trouble later on and later had to
close down. By this time, Vinod Mehta had taken charge
as the Editor, and subsequently quit, to start The Independent,
belonging to the Times of India group. Many of us
with the Indian Post joined the editorial team under
his leadership in 1989. Incidentally, the Executive
Editor, Dina Vakil, who left The Independent to join
the Times of India, thanked me in a letter dated May 4,
1990 for my support to the newspaper. I have my utmost
regard for all these three, Nihal Singh, Vinod Mehta
and Dina Vakil, for their personal gestures.
Among the other major papers where I served as
correspondent, were the Financial Express for nine
years, the Afternoon, the Tribuna of then Portuguese
Macau, a news agency from Lisbon Noticias de Portugal
and the NCWC News Service, Massachusetts, USA. It was
hard work, and when I look back at those times, I am
amazed how I was able to keep to my schedules and enjoy
doing it.
Such challenges apart, it has been a great party always
and I had a wow of a time.