Team Herald
MARGAO: With the Principal of Mount Mary Higher Secondary School Trevor Barreto stating he had lost confidence in Fatorda Police and demanding that his complaint about setting his car on fire be transferred to the Crime Branch, Fatorda PI Kapil Nayak has asserted that there was no use of any explosives in the case.
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Briefing media persons Trevor said, “On February 20 at around 2:50 am four miscreants came on two motorcycles and scouted the area around his house. Subsequently, they parked the bikes near the entrance to the colony where his house is located.”
“Two of them walked to the compound of the colony and one of them jumped over the compound wall and kept something on my parked car and left. Immediately, thereafter there was a loud sound and my car was on fire,” he complained.
He said his aged mother who lives in the bungalow where the car was parked rushed out and then woke them up. They immediately contacted the fire services who later doused the fire.
Trevor said he had lodged a complaint with the Fatorda Police and had handed over CCTV footage from a neighbour’s CCTV camera, which clearly showed four persons scouting the area and the person entering his compound.
As he expressed total dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Fatorda Police have handled his case, his solicitor Adv Seoula Avila Vas said “The police have lodged a first information report on a minor count while actually serious sections that attracted imprisonment have been deliberately kept out.”
She said the police have registered the FIR under Section 435 of the Indian Penal Code which is about mischief caused by fire causing damage to the tune of Rs 100 only while here the entire bonnet of the car costing Rs 6.50 lakh was damaged.
Besides she said since there was lurking in the night and likelihood of damage to dwelling place and also trespass in the compound Sections 120(B), 436 and 456 of IPC should have been invoked which she said was not done as then the case would have to be decided by the Sessions Court since it attracted imprisonment of up to 10 years.
Both Trevor and Adv Seoula argued that the act of setting the vehicle on fire by using explosive substance after jumping over the compound wall amounted to an act of terrorism and said the relevant sections ought to have been invoked.
