Margao: After much ado, the Canacona Police have finally filed an FIR in the murder of 22-year-old Finnish/Swedish National Dhal Felix Vaklemar, thanks to the insistence of JMFC Canacona. The FIR has been registered under Section 156 (3) of the CrPC directing Canacona Police to register an FIR under Section 302 of the IPC. The victim’s mother Ms Minna Pirhonem filed the FIR and a probe has begun. The complainant said on the intervening night of January 27-28, 2015, unknown accused person(s) committed murder of complainant’s 22-year-old son Dhal Felix Vaklemar. The alleged murder was committed at Patnem, Canacona.
The body was found in suspicious circumstances on January 28, 2015, in Patnem village in South Goa.
According to the family, Felix’s death was suspicious and wasn’t an accident which the police earlier claimed. The family said the wounds and the circumstances did not point to an accident. Later in February 2016, when they saw no headway in the case, Minna hired the services Singhania & Co., a legal firm in Mumbai. Advocates of the firm started writing letters to various authorities in the country, right from senior police officials in Goa, to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
After intense deliberations with the enforcement authorities, the advocates at Singhania & Co. reached out to the Finnish Embassy for their support and intervention. As a result, the Embassy called its Consul General to watch the proceedings at Canacona.
After convincing all enforcement authorities and after an intense arguments by the Advocates Shikha Bhura and Rajdeep Lahiri from Mumbai office of Singhania & Co., the authorised representative of Minna Pirhonen, it was left to the local Civil and Criminal Court of Canacona, Goa, to order for registration of the FIR thereby allowing the Complaint of Minna u/s 302, and also to order the police to file a report about that within one month.
Felix had come to Goa for holidays in October, 2014. It was reported that he (Felix) had gone missing from Mini Goa restaurant in Patnem only four hours before his dead body was found on a quiet gravel road 200 meters from the restaurant. The police had been called in by a local who spotted the body in front of her house in Patnem at 5.30am, January 28, 2015. The complainants stated that the body 5 marks on the back of the head, a broken skull and severe damages to the brain.
The local police in Canacona, having jurisdiction of the crime spot, were undergoing investigations through inquest proceedings U/s 174 of CrPC, but they did not register an FIR. The police filed the case as a natural death and reported to the family that Felix fell on the gravel road and hit his head. However, a Finnish doctor who performed the second autopsy, concluded that it was impossible to get the damages seen in Felix’s head by falling, and furthermore, he had an excessive amount of an over-the-counter antihistamine, pheniramine, in his body. Overdose of this medication has mental and physical effects, such as dizziness, perturbed vision and mental confusion. An American forensic pathologist contacted by Felix’s family estimated that Felix’s death was a result of an assault by one or several persons that took place several hours before his body was found.
The investigation was concluded by the Canacona Police already in February 2015, however, they did not close the case. On repeated requests by the Mother of the deceased, Minna Pirhonen, from Finland, through various emails and telephonic conversations, no attention was paid to recording of the FIR and conducting a proper investigation. Instead, they then filed the death as an accident.
Mother of the deceased conducted her own inquiry and found out that Felix had a fight in Patnem the previous night with a young martial arts expert and was then taken by the police back to Agonda where he lived. The following day he had wounds and was afraid and kept asking people if somebody was going to kill him. This has also been documented in the investigation of the local police in Goa and also further documentation exists.
During Felix’s last evening and night, a local man from Agonda took him to see a doctor, after which the said man drove him to Patnem to Mini Goa restaurant. After that it was told that Felix ran away and the said local person followed him by car but later told that Felix could not be traced. Thereafter, the said man returned to Agonda to demand Felix’s computer (worth Rs 1.4 lakh) from the restauranteur where it had been kept and used by the staff and guests. The said local man has been violent in the past.
