Ex-Goa Home Minister Naik had links with drug mafia: Report

Former Goa Home Minister and Congress leader Ravi Naik, his son Roy and some senior police officers have been indicted for alleged links with drug peddlers by a Goa Assembly committee, which has recommended action against him and a probe by NIA.
In an explosive report tabled in the Assembly today, the House Committee, formed a year ago, has accused them of being involved in and shielding narcotics trade in the coastal State during the erstwhile Congress-led Government.
The report of the panel, set up under chairmanship of Goa Vikas Party MLA Francisco Miccky Pacheco to probe links between politicians, drug peddlers and policemen in Goa, has based the findings on documentary evidence collected by it.

"The House Committee holds that Ravi S Naik, then Home Minister, was actively involved in drug trade. He was closely associated with drug mafia leader Yaniv Benaim (an Israeli national) and shielded his son and instigated police personnel under his charge to gleefully indulge in drug trade in the State for common pecuniary and other gains," said the report.
It has called for a probe by National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the assets and investments of Ravi Naik.
"The pecuniary gains received by the then Home Minister and his son by colluding with drug traders and drug mafia in the state, being extraordinarily large, were invested in several commercial and illicit purposes, thereby raising a doubt whether such investments were in conformity with national security and requiring a thorough investigation by the NIA," according to the 100-page report.

Interestingly, two legislators of ruling BJP - Vishnu Wagh and Michael Lobo, who were the part of the committee, have declined to sign the report.
Ravi Naik was not immediately available for comment on the allegations levelled against him in the report.