THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Voices Devdutt Pattanaik Neha Sinha Shampa Dhar-Kamath Ravi Shankar Dr Ramya Alakkal Mata Amritanandamayi Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment december 21 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Go Goa Gone The dark underbelly of the sunshine state in the dock The Luthra brothers are accused of operating Birch by Romeo Lane in gross violation of fire safety norms and licensing regulations Goa may shimmer for the world, but beneath its beaches runs a hard, unvarnished saga of crime, corruption and a paradise quietly coming undone G By Suruchi Kapur Gomes oa gleams like a jewel in the Arabian Sea, its sundrenched beaches whispering promises of escape, where azure waves cradle barefoot dreams and the air hums with the lazy rhythm of susegad—that effortless Goan grace. Palm-fringed shores, vibrant markets, and sunsets that paint the sky in molten gold: this is the paradise peddled to the world. Yet, peel back the postcard veneer, and a shadow-self emerges—sleazy corrupt, festering with the rot of greed. For , those who live here, it is a place sinking under the weight of stolen land, dirty money and trafficked drugs. , Birch by Romeo Lane, a glitzy Arpora nightclub packed with partygoers, went up in flames in early December, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more. Emergency exits didn’t exist where they should have, safety clearances were allegedly ignored, and demolition orders that should have shuttered the club lay buried in bureaucratic dust. The club’s owners—the Luthra brothers—fled the country before surfacing in Thailand, where they were detained and later brought back. Fringed by palms and washed by an Arabian Sea that turns molten gold at sunset, Goa’s beaches have long promised a kind of easy grace—wide, breathing shores where fishing nets dry in the sun and the horizon feels uncluttered. It is this beauty fragile and , magnetic, that now frames a far uglier truth. The tragedy exposed a pattern. For years, locals have complained about illegal constructions mushrooming across the coastline: restaurants creeping into sand dunes, hotels swallowing wetlands, bars operating without licences, nightclubs built on agricultural land, beach shacks expanding into multi-storey commercial structures overnight. “Every illegal bar you see, every shack that pops up overnight, someone has been paid to look away says 62-year-old shopkeeper Rita Afonso ,” from Anjuna, who has watched farmland around her vanish into unlicensed lounges. “We’re losing our home,” she rues. Fisherman Celso D’Mello in Arambol puts it even more bluntly: “They build where the sea “Even a regular citizen running a simple business is scared their place will be shut down or construction stalled. Notices are used to harass. Everybody is misusing power.” Gaurav Bakshi, activist should breathe. They build where turtles nest. They’d build on our graves if they could sell tickets.” In early December, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved in on an extraordinary illegal land-grab racket, attaching more than `1,268 crore worth of prime plots in Anjuna, Assagao and Ucassaim. The arrest of the accused, including Shivshankar Mayekar, marked one of the most audacious real-estate scams in the state’s history Another ED . chargesheet detailed how a second syndicate quietly stole over 50 properties worth another `232 crore, using fake succession deeds. Land isn’t the only commodity trafficked in plain sight. From rave highs to riverine smuggling routes, narcotics have carved out their own discreet empire—fed by the careful cultivation of “party-friendly Goa,” a brand that sells permissiveness as pleasure and turns excess into an unspoken promise for those who know where to look. Police and ED records of December 2024 show foreign nationals using drug trials to stall deportation, German and Russian suspects caught with LSD, ketamine and cocaine. A German man was arrested with LSD tabs and ketamine worth nearly `24 lakh in Vagator—a bust investigators say represents a single drop in a beachwide tide. A federal probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act dug deeper still, filing a chargesheet against seven people, including two foreigners, accused of smuggling multiple kilos of cocaine. And still, the tourism machine roars. More than 5.5 million tourists visited Goa in the first half of 2025. “People come for paradise,” says taxi driver Vishnu Naik. “But they don’t see what’s happening beneath. It’s like we’re living under two suns—one bright for outsiders, one burning for us.” Burning Paradise A once languorous village state—defined by green expanses, mangroves, and an unhurried coastline—is being stripped bare. Construction flourishes in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) and agricultural zones. Hillocks like Reis Magos are flayed, raising fears of a Wayanadlike catastrophe. The slide became irreversible during Covid, when Goa threw its doors wide open. Political brass, bureaucrats, and the well-heeled moved in. The susegad land of beaches, shacks, xiit kodi, and straightforward Goans was methodically overrun. Today the lack of regulation, enforcement, , and deterrent laws has turned the “sunny city” into a “sin city”. “It’s a systematic process of bribes—the numbers, price, clear cut, and accepted—from top down,” says Gaurav Bakshi, activist and founder of HelpdesQ.in. “Officers don’t shy away from quoting rates. Conversion sanads, property licences, plan approvals—each has a price. If a five-room villa needs a guest house licence, it’s `5,00,000.”And where construction invades CRZs, worse inevitably follows. Heta Pandit, co-founder and director of Heritage First Goa, is unequivocal. “Goa had the potential to become a model state. Instead, here we are, looking at our natural wealth and potential squandered with nothing left for the future. Its natural resources—mountains, forests, magnificent rivers and life-giving agricultural systems—was a legacy for continuance, not consumption alone. The real issue is giving permissions—or turning a blind eye to illegal activity—that is damaging Goa’s fragile and sensitive environment.” The demand is simple, yet elusive: honest governance, legal accountability and political , will—to give back, not just ruthlessly take. Activist Swapnesh Sherlekar of the Goencho Swabhiman Party who has faced repeated , legal intimidation for his petitions, is blunt. “The Birch fire cannot be taken in isolation,” he says. “The construction should not have been in the middle of a salt pan—legally it cannot be constructed. How was construction approved? There is no proof of a Conversion Sanad under the Goa Land Revenue Code. The Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority says it is outside its domain, even as the Regional Plan and Outline Development Plan show a salt pan.” He points to a trail of ignored warnings. “This property had multiple red flags—notices since 2023. These gross violations were allegedly ignored. What vanished was a wetland that protected Goa’s biodiversity .” On November 4, 2025, a legal notice seeking immediate demolition was issued by senior state advocate Rohit Bras Dsa, citing “an alarming pattern of statutory violations that have remained inadequately addressed despite multiple complaints, inspections, show-cause notices and even a formal demolition order.” The notice warned of “brazen contraventions of law, and an immediate threat to public safety and ecological integrity .” River Grab The state’s rivers are working waterways that carry fishing boats, absorb floods, drain fields, and hold together a fragile coastal ecology—serene ribbons of water shaded by Narco Normalised Goa’s drug scene is fed by tourism money, protected by silence, and sustained by a system that profits from looking away “The Birch construction should not have been in the middle of a salt pan—legally it cannot be constructed. How was construction approved?” Swapnesh Sherlekar, activist mangroves and coconut palms, where mornings unfold in mist, birdsong, and a slow, tidal grace that is unmistakably Goan. Yet along the Chapora, Mandovi, Sal and their creeks, river edges harden into private frontage. In Morjim, on the Chapora riverbank, two fishermen have taken the state to court after alleging that a high-end bar-restaurant complex continues to operate inside the no-development zone despite a formal demolition order. The structures they describe are not temporary shacks but permanent works—concrete built right up to the river, including a swimming pool—cutting off customary fishing access. A demolition order dated September 7, 2025, directed removal within a fixed period. Months later, the fishermen say the riverbank remained , unchanged. “We used to pull our boats here,” says Ramesh Naik, a third-generation fisherman from Morjim. “Now there’s concrete where the river should breathe. It feels like the bank has been sold.” That sense of dispossession echoes upriver on the Mandovi. In late 2025, proceedings before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) flagged six jetties operating without valid permissions. The petitioner in that case told the tribunal that despite written complaints, the directions had not been meaningfully implemented. “First it’s a ramp, then lights, then a shed,” says Savita Kamat, who lives near the Mandovi backwaters. “One day you realise the river has a reception desk.” What follows, she adds, is visible even without measurements—floating garbage, oil slicks, waste drifting into the backwaters. “The river carries everything we throw at it,” says Anthony D’Souza, a boat owner from Ribandar. “And nobody takes responsibility for what comes back.” Further south, on the Sal river in Velim, the coastal authority ordered demolition after finding that a structure within the no-development zone had been expanded horizontally and vertically Locals say this is where rules are . most often bent. “They call it repair, then renovation,” says Maria Fernandes, who has lived by the Sal for over four decades. “By the time anyone checks, there’s another floor and a different purpose.” In Velha Goa, inspections ordered after Turn to page 2