CHOTA RAJAN’S SHARP SHOOTER IS GONE, THE LANDLADY FACES HARASSMENT FROM PERNEM POLICE

ARAMBOL: Maria Mascarenhas is as far removed from the world of sharpshooters and gangsters, as the Goa police is from the truth. This seventy- year- old has been living in her village of Arambol for years used to a life of routine with the regular village feast the only excitement in her social calendar.

Today the Pernem police is threatening to put her behind bars for seven years for shielding a gangster. Exactly a week ago, her simple world got rudely embroiled with Mumbai’s dreaded gangland when the Mumbai Crime Branch swooped down on Goa and arrested, Maria’s “ tenant”, Sheikh Umaid- ur- Rehman Ishrat Hussain, one of gangster Chota Rajan sharpshooters.

Hussain, one of Chota Rajan’s trusted “ killers”, was involved in the murder of the driver cum body guard of Dawood’s brother Iqbal Kaskar in Mumbai.  He fled immediately and moved to Arambol with his wife to escape the heat. Neither Arambol nor Maria were in the know of the Mumbai killing or the killer.

She probably still doesn’t but is being constantly harassed and mentally tortured.  Pernem police which has belatedly woken up to realise that a wanted gangster was living right under their noses for over a month, have turned their frustration on Maria.

It is learnt that a police sub inspector posted at Arambol outpost has been threatening the elderly woman to push her behind bars for seven years for allowing the ‘ tourists’ stay in the house without completing mandatory formalities of registering the presence of her tenants.

One of the locals near the Panchayat office at Arambol remarked “ The PSI screamed at her and said ‘ the media is making a tamasha’. You can call the media and not the police?” When local Press visited her in the interiors of Arambol, Maria reluctantly spoke, still in shock. She said that the police forced her to go and deposit the belongings of the gangster and his wife to the police station. Locals too confirmed that the police conducted no panchanama of the items. “ Mobile chargers, suitcases, bags, a mixer grinder, an iron and every small material belonging to the gangster’s family is with the Pernem police. On Sunday at about 1 am, we hired a taxi and deposited it at the police station,” said sources.

Moreover, the copy of the panchanama report made at the police station also does not have any signature of the witnesses. “ We were asked to come the next day to sign on the panchanama copy. We went to the police station and they asked us to come next time as they are busy in bandobast.

But till date there is no intimation from them,” said a neighbour. “ The Pernem police had come a day after the Mumbai Crime Branch’s raid. But they did not take interest.

It was only on Sunday, they forced the woman to deposit all the belongings at the police station,” said the source. Maria Mascarenhas, admits not to have taken the group of five ( Umaid, his wife and three others) seriously as they portrayed themselves as tourists from Mumbai.

“ They were not foreigners. The manner in which they came we took pity. The married woman ( gangster’s wife) said she is on medication and feeling better in the Goa environment,” said Mascarenhas.

The rooms, located on the first floor of the main house at the tourist place were rented out at Rs 20,000 for one month and the gangster’s family would purchase all the home materials every day except for the cylinder and gas stove, which was provided by the land lady.

For Maria, life, at least for some time now, may not be the same again. For no fault of hers except that she missed out on something that so many landlords in Goa do. – SR