Panaji: Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik on Saturday said that the state government has banned Sri Rama Sene in the state, even as a top official said he was not "sure about the ban".
Naik said the ban on the Hindu outfit came into force from Saturday.
"The organisation has been banned in Goa. Anyone trying to start a branch of the Sri Rama Sene in Goa will be arrested," Naik told a local cable TV news network.
He said the government had moved quickly in enforcing the ban, because of a political unanimity in the state against the outfit. "Even opposition leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party Manohar Parrikar had sought a ban on the Sri Rama Sene," Naik said.
However chief secretary Anand Prakash said he was not aware of the ban. "I am not sure about it. I am not able to confirm the ban on the Sri Rama Sene," Prakash said.
The fringe Hindu group based in neighbouring Karnataka hit the spotlight in January after it attacked a group of women in a Mangalore pub on grounds that they were violating traditional Indian values.
In a public rally at Vengurla, 66 km from here, Sri Rama Sene leader Pramod Muthalik had said he had received several appeals from Goans to start a unit of his party to curb the pub culture in the coastal resort state.
Muthalik, who has nearly 45 cases against him and has been banned from entering Mangalore district for a year, said he was keen on setting up the Sene in Goa "to check the westernised way of life the state has grown used to".
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