On A Snort Leash

When a team of West Bengal cops pulled over the car of Pamela Goswami and encircled it almost commando-style, she was nervous and resisted when they sought to search her vehicle. Understandably so. The cops found 90 grams of cocaine with the market value of about Rs 10 lakh in the car of the Yuva Morcha general secretary, the Bengal BJP’s youth wing. Accompanying her was Prabir Kumar Dey, another Yuva Morcha leader, and Pamela’s bodyguard. Now fast-forward a couple of hours. While being taken away in a prison van, the 23-year-old Pamela shouted slogans—like “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”—and hollered that she was being framed.

Was it a setup, really? By whom, if at all it was as the small-time Bengali model who rose to become one of BJP’s youth faces in a highly polarised Bengal electing a new government in this summer? Pamela alleged in a court the day after her arrest that it was a conspiracy hatched by BJP leader Rakesh Singh, who she referred to as a close aide of the party’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya. Police have arrested Singh following her allegation.

Little did she know that if anyone drew the police’s attention towards her, it was her father. On April 8, 2020, Goswami’s father wrote to the Calcutta police commissioner, submitted a copy to Jadavpur police station, requesting that his daughter be on their watch. The father alleged that Prabir—42, married, and father of an eight-year-old son—was in a relationship with Pamela and it was he who introduced her to drugs. The father, who appeared concerned about the future of his daughter, said Pamela became an add­ict and Dey instigated her to move out of her parents’ home. He said he had repeatedly asked Dey to get divorced and marry his daughter. But Dey kept dillydallying.

“After this letter, we put her on watch. We took time because we wanted to catch them red-handed and have a full-proof case. But COVID-19 delayed the investigation,” says an officer.

Prior to her political foray, she partnered with Dey for a business in interior designing in 2018. They have a store at a prominent shopping mall in Calcutta. She used to describe herself as a social worker and entrepreneur. Pamela, a former airhostess, had a rather striking rise in the BJP, after joining the party in July 2019. She was appointed the Yuva Morcha’s state wing general secretary the next year. The BJP is now guarded in its response. “We cannot rule out a conspiracy by the police,” says Samik Bhattacharya, a party spokesperson.

The cops are now trying to sniff out the source of the cocaine, while social media is high on a meme blast pummeling Pamela.

By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Calcutta