Panaji, April 7
Could Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, with his comments on the
Fabindia case, first ruling out mal-intent and subsequently giving a
clean chit to the top Fabindia management, end up influencing the crime
branch probe?
Parsekar's comment on Monday where he ruled out
mischief by Fabindia's top management and blamed junior staffers with
womanizing tendencies, came at a time when the crime branch sleuths are
expected to question top management, including chief executive officer
Subrata Dutta and managing director William Bissell, in the case.
A
senior police official from the North District police on condition of
anonymity told IANS that the CCTV footage from Fabindia's store in Goa
was being monitored at various levels, by the store manager, company
officials supervising security of stores across the country, across
tiers and as such the blame for any lapse or tweaking of CCTV camera
setting lies across the chain of command and not just with salespersons
at the store, who were arrested on Friday and later released on bail.
"Any
change of angle to cause mischief would have been observed by officials
supervising security and even senior management, ideally they should be
brought into the loop of investigation," said the officer, who was part
of the North District investigation team before the case was
transferred to the Crime Branch.
"Fabindia is supposed to be a
reputed company. I personally feel that it must not be the company's
fault but mischief played by its staff members. Some womanizers must
have done that," Parsekar told reporters on Monday after returning from
the Bharatiya Janata Party national executive in Bengaluru.
On
Sunday, however, he said: "Before Smritiji, there are images of women of
who used the room, but not whole (images). Seems like it was not
intentional, probably unintentional."
Parsekar also holds the
home portfolio, to which the police department reports. So, is it proper
on the part of a home minister to give a clean chit to a company, on
the eve of the Crime Branch summoning two top officials for questioning?
"Parsekar
as the home minister should not have made the comment midway through
the investigation. He should have waited for police to complete the
probe," Congress spokesperson Durgadas Kamat said.
The
investigation has already seen several glaring lapses. These include
trespassing of the crime scene by Bharatiya Janata Party legislators and
leaders on Friday, the day union Human Resource Development Minister
Smriti Irani first raised alarm about the allegedly intrusive CCTV.
BJP
legislator Michael Lobo was allowed by police to scan through critical
evidence in this case. He said that it contained video clips of women
changing clothes in the trial room.
When contacted, BJP leader
Wilfred Mesquita said police should be allowed to investigate the case
in peace and politicians should refrain from commenting on it until the
probe is completed.
Four junior employees of Fabindia were
arrested on Friday and released on bail a day later by a local trial
court, which did not buy police argument that the camera lens was
tweaked with mal-intent.
Fabindia has formally issued an apology to Irani, but has denied any wrongdoing on its part.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at [email protected])
