TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: In a shocking incident, a 50-year-old fisherwoman from Tarir-Rajbag was reportedly raped and later murdered at an isolated spot opposite the Canacona ITI at Mastimoll on Friday afternoon.
According to sources in Canacona Police, Vijaya S Pagi, a door-to-door fish vendor, was found murdered and her nude body along with a torn saree and undergarments were located at an isolated place near ITI Mastimoll on Friday evening.
Sources informed that her throat was slit with a sharp weapon. A mangalsutra and other gold ornaments were found intact on her body, ruling out robbery as the motive for murder. However, a used contraceptive pack was found near the woman’s body, suggesting that she may have been raped before being brutally done to death.
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It is learnt that Pagi was regularly known to travel on foot from her residence to Mastimoll area to sell fish and would reach home only after 12.30 or 1 pm on any given day. She was always known to take the route via JNV-ITI road to reach Mastimoll residential area and back to her home at via Kindlem to Rajbag-Tarir.
As Pagi failed to reach home at her usual time, her worried lone daughter and her husband Shashikant unsuccessfully tried calling her on her mobile phone, but found it unreachable.
As efforts to contact her failed for the next 2-3 hours, they became worried as it was not normal for her to be out of contact for so long and to be delayed from returning home.
The frantic family members then alerted neighbours and began a search on the route normally used by Pagi to sell fish at Mastimoll.
They then noticed a brutally murdered body inside the bushes across the road opposite Canacona ITI campus. It is learnt that the woman had tea in the ITI canteen at about 12.30 pm while walking back home after selling fish.
A Canacona police team rushed to the site, while a police dog squad was also pressed into service to work on the clues.
SP (South) Shekhar Prabhudessai along with Canacona PI Harischandra Madkaikar visited the murder site and supervised investigations.
