PONDA: Goa Police on Monday arrested four persons in connection with the gruesome murder of 45-year-old Saganmalank Gouda, a farmer from Gadag in Karnataka at Anmod Ghat last month.
The police have arrested the murder victim’s wife Laxmi Gauda (33), who is the prime accused, her lover Suresh Pujar (38) and two accomplices Jagdish Ballapa Dodamani (39) and Muttanna Anaalad (35) all from Gadag.
It may be recalled that Saganmalank’s body was found abandoned on Anmod Ghat on January 15 and the police suspecting that the accused might be from Karnataka recently published the photo of the victim in the newspapers in Karnataka. The locals informed the victim’s wife and they visited the Ponda police station two days ago. Laxmi identified the body to that of her husband.
Based on call details of wife and the victim the Police traced the location at Anmod Ghat on the day of the incident.
After being questioned, Laxmi confessed to committing the crime following which police arrested her lover Suresh Pujar and two other accomplices.
Police disclosed that Laxmi had illicit relations with Suresh for the last ten years. The victim is said to be suffering from asthma for a long time. Since he was thorn in their illicit relationship, Laxmi and Suresh planned the murder along with two of his accomplices. On January 15, the accused on the pretext of taking Saganmalank for treatment to Goa in a car killed him and abandoned his body at Anmod Ghat and returned to Karnataka.
The postmortem report revealed the death due to strangulation and that the victim was poisoned before he was done to death. It is learnt that the victim was forced to consume the solution used in batteries.
Police registered an offence section 302, 201, 120(B) for murder, criminal conspiracy and for destroying evidence.
The police team was led by South Goa SP Arvind Gawas, DySP Mahesh Gaonkar, Ponda PI Harish Marcaikar and Collem PI Arjun Sangodkar with the cooperation from SP of Ron Police Station in Karnataka.
