PANJIM: We are sorry to bring you such news on a Sunday morning. The Mapusa police have struck once again. A married woman who had complained against the constant verbal and physical abuses of her husband, has been summoned by the deputy collector, on a complaint by the Mapusa police, for being a “public nuisance” and sign a bond of good behavior. The errant husband, who had attacked his wife and her brothers’ with a knife, after she had filed a complaint (which was, as per tradition of the Mapusa police, not registered) roams free. The Mapusa police station, is headed by Police Inspector Tushar Vernekar
While the wife will appear before the deputy collector on October 7 to sign a bond of good behavior, the husband who has taken away all her important papers including her voter card, does not even face a charge of attacking his wife and her brothers with a knife. The brothers in turn have not to interfere in the case between a husband and wife.
But the victim wife will have another victim going through the same ordeal of being summoned for breaching peace, while her alleged rapist and accomplices are untouched. This woman from Camurlim-her story of her neighbours stuffing chilli power into her vagina, known due to Herald’s efforts at not taking itself off this story, has been summoned apparently because she “is a public nuisance and disturbing the peace”. Her assailants, arrested after Herald’s continuous reportage were later freed. A chapter case has been filed against this single mother, who was beaten regularly for months culminating in the incident where she was stripped, beaten and chilly powder stuffed in her. She will appear before the deputy collector a week, after the victim mentioned above.
Both of them live, under what is becoming a notorious police jurisdiction of Mapusa, where rapists and brutal husbands have no restrictions while their victims, including a wife, are labelled as “public nuisances”.
How long will the North Goa SP,
Mapusa PI duck and hide?
The North Goa SP hasn’t offered single comment to Herald, on three cases of police inaction in the face of criminal brutality on women, under the Mapusa PI’s jurisdiction. The Mapusa PI hasn’t either. What would you call the latest Goa police inspired act of summoning two of the hapless victims, abused and bruised on, for being a “public nuisance”, by the Deputy Collector? Words fail us.
