CAMURLIM: Dear Readers, we are sorry to bring to you this continued coverage of the most heinous crime on a woman in Goa. It may spoil your Sunday morning but hopefully do enough to make you raise your voice and take to the streets of necessary to demand nothing less than maximum punishment for what was nothing other than rape and attempt to murder, committed by a beast of a man and assisted by his wife and mother, on their neighbour a single woman with a six-year-old son. She was pulled by her hair, brutally beaten, including on her private parts, her clothes torn of and chilly and turmeric powder stuffed in her genitals.
This was perhaps the most brutal torture on a woman the slum dwellers had ever witnessed. The survivor’s cry for help still echoes in the ears of the residents of this cluster of slum dwellings, a part of a 20-point programme housing scheme. A majority of whom are migrants from the neighbouring states.
The three accused persons – mother Sonabai, son Jogre Sasve and daughter-in-law Bharti Sasve have been arrested on charges of rape and other serious offences.
That a property dispute would result in cruelty was beyond the imagination of residents who were used-to the recurring fights between the two neighbours. “After we heard the cry, other neighbours called up the police. By then, she was already in semi-conscious state,” Anand, one of her neighbours told Herald.
After her husband’s death, the victim has been staying in the house with her minor daughter and father. “The property dispute was going on since the days her mother was alive. After her death, the neighbours began harassing her,” Deu Patil, another resident said. The hut on the 100 sq mtrs plot was constructed under the national scheme – 20-point programme by her father.
She courageously tackled all what her neighbours threw at her for many, many years. We don’t know exactly what happened on the fateful day. We are told the three persons overpowered her and mercilessly beat her,” another neighbour said on condition of anonymity, as she did not want to be a part of the investigation.
As Team Herald came away, coming to terms with the enormity of what happened, the helplessness of the victim and the haplessness of the police for not even carrying out a ‘panchanama’ for six days, it has resolved to fight this to its conclusion. If a VIP alleged rapist like Tarun Tejpal can be in jail, the brutes of Camurlim deserve much harsher treatment.
Police takes six days to conduct panchanama
Six days after a woman was sexually and physically assaulted in broad daylight a team of Mapusa police – including the SDPO Mahesh Gaonkar and the Mapusa PI – conducted a panchanama of the crime scene. She was taken back to the place where she was assaulted and evidence like nighty, chappals and other such would be weapons were attached by the police. However, sources say that they could not find the wooden-rib used to assault the victim.
The statement of the victim’s daughter too was taken by a group of NGOs. The statements of her aged father as well as other witnesses were also recorded.
According to sources, the victim could probably need a surgery as she could have a fracture and is presently under medication.
“Her hair was pulled, she beaten up including on her private parts before the accused stuffed chilly
powder. Some of the residents called up the police but by then, she was already unconscious,” a highly placed police official said quoting her complaint statement copy.
Residents claim that verbal arguments between the victim and the accused would crop up almost every week and the latest flash point was after she questioned her neighbours over trying to encroach into her property and destroying the flowering plants she had placed along the barbed wire.
“But then there are always two sides to the story. Another group has accused the woman of being a troublemaker. But when asked if there was a complaint against her, the answer was no.
