Team Herald
PANJIM: Usgao-Ganjem Panchayat Secretary Honaji Morajkar was suspended with immediate effect following a complaint of outraging of modesty filed against him by a 22-year-old woman from Valpoi.
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An order to this effect was issued by Panchayat Director Siddhi Halarnkar on Friday.
The woman had filed a complaint with Ponda police against 55-year-old Honaji from Sakhali and the Ponda police had booked him under sections 78 (2), 75(2), 75(3) and 79 of BNS 2023.
In an order, the Panchayat Director said, ” It is further directed that during the period of his suspension in force, the Village Panchayat Secretary Honaji Anil Morajkar of Village Panchayat Usgao Ganjem, Ponda, Block, shall report to the office of Block Development Office, Ponda, and will not leave the headquarters without obtaining the permission of this authority.”
However, the Panchayat Secretary shall be entitled to subsistence allowances as admissible, the
order said.
Earlier, Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said that file has been moved to suspend the Panchayat Secretary.
“We are taking action against the particular secretary. Such things cannot be tolerated in the government. We have already moved the file to suspend him,” he told the reporters at BJP headquarters in
the city.
However, the Opposition Congress lambasted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government for not protecting women in spite of coining the slogan ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’.
Addressing a press conference along with the victim, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee General Secretary Manisha Usgaonkar said,” When the government says Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, why action is not being taken in case? Why did the Panchayat minister not take action? The BJP government is known for double
standard practices.”
Usgaonkar said that if the victim is not given justice by the Department of Panchayat then the Congress party members along with the victim and her family members will protest at Department of Panchayat.
The Ponda police on January 14, registered a case against the Usgao-Ganjem panchayat secretary for allegedly outraging the modesty of a 22-year-old woman from Valpoi.
The day after the complaint was lodged, the accused went on sick leave and filed an anticipatory bail application, which the court accepted, granting him interim relief. He was granted interim relief on his anticipatory bail application on January
16, 2025.
