The Navhind Times: Goa: Friday, April 27, 2018.
Kenneth
Silveira, a businessman recently arrested and released on bail for uploading a
false message on Facebook as regards the condition of the ailing Chief Minister
Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said that he was taken into custody by the police
not for posting the particular message on social media, but for seeking
information from the office of the Chief Minister, under Right to Information
Act, as regards details related to the illness of Parrikar.
Silveira was
arrested under Sec 505 of the Indian Penal Code for spreading rumours and
creating panic.
Addressing a
press conference in the city, Silveira said that the line of interrogation was
not his Facebook post. “My questions were like checkmate to the office of the
Chief Minister,” he added, stating that his mobile phones as well as laptop
have also been confiscated by the police.
Silveira, who
had contested against Parrikar as an independent candidate, at the August 2017
assembly by-election for the Panaji constituency had asked questions to the CMO
about medical bills along with health reports of the Chief Minister during the
past 3 months; copy of details of any budget allocation, approvals, permissions
sought, decisions, notings with regard to the expenditure of the Chief Minister
for his foreign tour, medical expenditure, hotel bookings, flight bookings,
expenditure towards his family expenses for the period ranging from February
2018 till date, and so on.
Speaking
further, Silveira said that Rupesh Kamat, an official linked to the CMO was
responsible for his arrest. “The day I uploaded the message on Facebook, he had
responded by saying. ‘Time to go in’, and then I went in (the police custody)
and have now come out,” he noted.
Silveira also
said that he has already sought information as regards various issues,
including those related to the proposed Mopa airport, under the RTI Act,
however, he was never questioned about these RTI applications. “I was also
harassed by the government in a land deal, pertaining to the purchase of land
in Mopa village,” he informed, adding that his land deal case was singled out,
he was targeted and finally victimised.
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