Hotel rivalries lead to murders on the coastal belt

PANAJI: Goa's coastal belt has seen hotels and restaurants mushrooming in recent years. Rivalries among hotel owners have also grown alongside. Some have even resulted in murders. In July alone, two hoteliers have been murdered.

While the police seem to be groping in the dark and are yet to nab the killers, locals who have been in the hotel business for a long time say "outsiders" have come into the trade and vitiated the atmosphere. A hotelier who prefers to be anonymous says, "These new entrants deal in drugs and women. They also launder money. And invariably, they develop intense rivalries that leads to one of them being murdered."

On Tuesday night, 52-year-old Praveen Grover, one of the owners of Perelo do Mar, a hotel in Candolim, was shot dead. Grover had a running dispute that ended in litigation with one of the directors of his resort called Sunil Thukral. The police have arrested Thukral and yet another director of the resort Anand Walwaiker.

North Goa SP D K Sawant told DNA that both Thukral and Grover claimed to be owners of the hotel. The fight between them dates back ten years.

On  Tuesday, around 7 p m, Grover was entering his resort when an unknown assailant shot at him at close range. The assailant and his accomplice then escaped on a motorcycle. Grover was rushed in a critical condition to the government hospital at Bambolim but died soon afterwards.

Although Sawant says Grover's death was a direct result of the rivalry with his partner, local hoteliers insist that often “outside businessmen” used hotels as a front for their nefarious activities. “Often you see these businessmen acquire fancy cars and posh houses in a short span of time, whereas we have to struggle to acquire these things. Its clear their money comes from drug dealing," says the owner of one of the oldest restaurants in Candolim.

In fact, he says Anuj Joshi, the 45-year-old pub owner, who was found in his bed with his throat slit on July 3 was targeted because he was allegedly involved in money laundering and drug dealing. Nearly ten days after the crime, the police have made no arrests.