Mahanand gets lucky yet again
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, NOV 13
Mahanand Naik got lucky for the fifth time when he was acquitted by the North Goa District and Sessions Court in the case of murder of 33-year-old girl.
Kesar Naik from Mapa-Panchawadi was found dead at an isolated place in Sanvordem in 2007. Mahanand, the alleged serial killer was chargesheeted by Quepem police in 2009 for killing Kesar.
In a separate ruling in October, the Sessions Judge sentenced him to seven years imprisonment for raping his wife’s 23-year-old friend.
In the present case, Principal Sessions Judge Nutan Sardesssai pointed out that the prosecution failed to produce sufficient evidence to show Mahanand killed Kesar.
The prosecution case also got a beating when report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) at Hyderabad mentioned that DNA could not be extracted from the bone, furnished for examination.
The investigating team could only discover a bone from the scene of crime and other things, which were produced in the court.
Quepem police in their chargesheet stated that Mahanand impersonated himself as ‘Keshav’, a wealthy man from Ponda and befriended the victim.
Thereafter, he began frequenting her house and lured of marrying her.
Police further stated that on June 18, 2007 Kesar left home informing her family that she was going to Sanvordem with her boyfriend ‘Keshav’. But after that day, she was never seen.
The victim’s brother Rajaram Naik filed a missing complaint with Ponda police.
On confirming she was dead, the police registered a case of unnatural death. The 40-year-old rickshaw driver after his arrest in 2009 confessed that he strangulated Kesar to death in the bushes and pushed her dead body into the waters. The case was then re-opened for investigation.
Mahanand, till date, has a string of five acquittals out of 18 cases booked against him. His spate of crimes – rape, murder and robbery cases – unfolded one-by-one after he was called for questioning in the rape charge of the lone surviving victim.
He was then arrested by the Ponda police followed by his confessions. His modus operandi was to lure young and middle-aged unmarried girls with a bait of marriage. The unsuspecting girls would fall prey to his convincing talks.
Police said that on the fixed day, he would ask them to wear jewellery to impress his parents. He would however take them to secluded places and use their dupatta to strangulate them.
