IANS

Panaji, May 16: Senior officers from the state police cadre are one of the reasons why the law and order situation in Goa is deteriorating day by day, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Shripad Naik said Saturday.

Naik's statement accentuates months of bitter rivalry between Goa Police Service (GPS) officers and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, which has often spilled out into the public.

Speaking to reporters in Panaji, Naik a former union minister of state for civil aviation, said that sensitive posts like those of district superintendents of police and Crime Branch chief should be immediately handed over to IPS officers if crime, especially narcotics-related crime, was to be reined in.

"They should post IPS officers in these posts (district SPs and Crime Branch). Their experience will certainly help tackle the issue. Day by day, the crime situation in Goa is worsening," Naik, a former state BJP president and who represents North Goa, said.

Currently in Goa, a comparatively small state with just two districts, three GPS officers hold the three crucial supervisory posts of district SPs and Crime Branch head.

"Conventionally, the post of district SP and SP Crime in Goa has been occupied by an IPS officer because they are less prone to succumbing under pressure by politicians. They also have lesser local stakes or interests," a senior IPS officer said.

He further said that after a recent transfer of one GPS officer from a key post, after links of his kin to Goa’s narcotics mafia were exposed in an ongoing probe, the state home ministry had refused to appoint an IPS officer in his place.

"Things have reached such an impasse that the home ministry leverages its pressure on senior IPS officer using the state cadre SPs. They are virtually holding IPS officers to ransom," the officer said.

Chief Secretary Sanjiv Srivastava also admitted to reporters recently that IAS and IPS officers should be posted in key positions like district magistrates and district SPs.

"But I am not the government. The minister takes the final decision," Srivastava added.