Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji (SB)
 
Panaji, May 29: Goa Police on Saturday said that the tribals who were agitating at Balli village on Wednesday were `drunk’ and `uncontrolled’ which led to the fracas between them, locals and police.

Police spokesman Atmaram Deshpande said that `crowd were drunk and in the process of getting drunk. You could get from their body language that they were drunk.’ “It was evident that the leaders had lost control over the crowd,” he claimed.

Police have filed six cases in the incident including attempt to murder BJP legislator Ramesh Tawadkar and murder of two tribal leaders. The cases are handed over to Crime Branch for speedy investigation, he said.

On Wednesday, May 25, the agitation by United Tribals Associations Alliance (UTAA) had turned violent when local groups beat up the tribals, allegedly in presence of police. In the incident of stone pelting and cane charge, 17 policemen including superintendent of police, Tony Rodrigues, were injured.

Reacting to the incident for the first time, Police today said that they were overpowered by the crowd and back out.  Deshpande said that the number of policemen was much less compared to the crowd.

“As the policemen went back to Cuncolim police station, which is like sanctuary to them, Balli locals retaliated against the tribals,” Deshpande said adding that police were not present at the spot when two tribal leaders were burnt to death.

Deshpande said that there was scarce police presence as the event was supposed to be token strike and `awareness by tribals about their rights.’ “We had even given permission to hold awareness campaign. No one imagined that the crowd would turn violent. Even those in the crowd did not expect violence,” he said.

The spokesman ruled out police intelligence failure but at the same time said that `tribals had planned the attack.’ He could not justify why police failed to mobile the forces when crowd was huge and they were apparently impulsive.

Deshpande said that bodies of both the tribal leaders are in the morgue of Goa medical college and hospital as their family members have not come to identify them. “One body is charred beyond recognition so we want to conduct DNA test to ascertain his identity,” he said.