Goa minister saying drugs available ‘all over’ prompts clarification from CM Pramod Sawant: ‘slip of tongue’

Speaking on the sidelines of an event in South Goa, he said that so far, there had been no application from Sunburn organisers to hold the festival in South Goa, and that it was just residents’ anxiety that it might be held there.

“You are all shouting about Sunburn and drugs. There is (a different) festival that is organised for three days in Colva every year – I am sure some of you have gone to the festival. You want to tell me there are no drugs there? Drugs, I believe, are available,” he said.

He asked the public to be proactive in combating the issue of drugs. “It is our responsibility to identify those selling them… Our responsibility to intimate the police that they are available,” he said.

He further asked reporters: “You tell me, in your own village, are drugs not available? What are you doing, then? What am I doing? Nothing. I feel the time has come that all of us should work hand-in-hand and let us aggressively attack this menace.”

Opposition parties quickly latched on to Sequeira’s remarks.

The Goa Forward Party, in a statement, said, “Some ministers still talk the truth that the whole of Goa knows. It’s another matter that it reflects on the absolute failure of the anti-narcotics mechanism of Goa police, most probably because of collusion and connivance.”

AAP MLA Venzy Viegas said, “If drugs are indeed everywhere, then perhaps it’s time to change the people who are supposed to be keeping them under control. Drugs these days are available in schools. It is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to crackdown against drugs and ensure they are not available.”

Going into damage control mode, Chief Minister Sawant said Sequeira’s statement was a “slip of the tongue”.

“What he meant to say was that the problem of drugs is everywhere,” Sawant told reporters.

In the past few weeks, after Sunburn organisers announced plans to hold the festival in South Goa, several panchayats in the area have passed resolutions against allowing the event to be held in their villages.

Since its inception in 2007, the festival had been held in the coastal beach belt of North Goa.