Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: Goa police today has dismissed IRB constable Amit Naik. He had surrendered in Hubli last night, hours after he facilitated Suleman Siddique’s escape.
According to insiders, Naik might have been swayed by personal demands. Police sources claim that Naik had accumulated enormous debt and was having marital issues. After learning of his son’s crime, Naik’s father reportedly experienced a terrible shock and had to be hospitalized when Crime Branch police visited his home on Friday morning.
Suleman reportedly ditched Naik midway to Hubballi and fled in a white swift car, after which the constable surrendered as his bike ran out of fuel.
As the police manhunt expanded within and outside Goa, absconding IRBn Amit Naik surrendered before the Hubbali police late Friday evening.
The Crime Branch team was soon dispatched from Ribandar to take his custody. “The accused constable is at the Hubbali police station where he surrendered. Our team has left to formally arrest him and bring him back to Goa for investigation,” a senior officer said.
The team along with the accused are reportedly travelling by road while search for Suleman is underway.
In a startling episode, early on Friday, December 13, 2024, Siddique alias Suleman Khan (55), a convicted criminal in several land-grabbing cases, broke out of the Crime Branch’s custody in Ribandar, Goa.
IRBn PC Amit Naik, who was on watch duty, is accused of unlocking the detention facility and escaping with Khan on his two-wheeler at approximately 2:30 AM.
Authorities have started a statewide manhunt after receiving a formal complaint at the Old Goa Police Station. Following intense efforts spearheaded by SP Crime, Khan, who had been evading capture for 4.5 years, was apprehended by the Crime Branch SIT on November 12, 2024.
During a 30-day detention period, he was officially charged in three cases, two of which were in North Goa.
According to police sources, four members of the IRBn Battalion—three constables and a reserve hawaldar who serves as a station house officer (SHO)—are assigned to duty outside the lockup every two hours. However, senior officers never monitor what goes on there, so those assigned to duty do their jobs as they see fit.
According to a senior police officer, “the others slept comfortably in their barracks and woke up two hours later to find that the accused and the constable had fled while the lone cop carried out his duty.”
Additionally, the police claim that the lockup is unsuitable for housing the well-known defendant and that it is devoid of restrooms, which means that whenever an inmate wants to
