PANJIM: The Porvorim Police’s just-concluded investigation into a sexual assault case involving son of a prominent restaurateur has sprung a surprise.
A charge sheet filed before the Children’s Court mentions about a failed test identification parade of the 30-year-old alleged accused.
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Representing a bail plea filed before the High Court of Bombay at Goa, accused Varun Nayyar’s counsel Advocate Arun Bras De Sa referred to police’s say that neither the victim nor three eye witnesses could identify Varun during the test identification parade.
“It is a classic case of mistaken identity. In this context, neither the victim girl nor the so called star witnesses, who are said to have seen the victim girl in the applicant’s company, could identify the applicant in the test identification parade. Even the prosecution ‘say’ has been categoric that neither the victim girl nor the alleged eyewitnesses could identify the applicant as the culprit in the identification parade,” reads the applicant’s submission.
Varun had earlier this week walked out of judicial custody on being released on conditional bail by the High Court. The police charge sheet hardly has any material worth the name to link the applicant to the crime. What’s also surprising is that during the bail hearing, Adv De Sa submitted that there were no visible marks of any outrage on the private parts of the victim, although the additional public prosecutor Sagar Dhargalkar stated that medical evidence indicated injury on the girl’s chest — which is outraging modesty.
The High Court, while passing the order, had observed that the perpetrator’s identity remains unascertainable but a pre-trial bail cannot be treated as exoneration of the applicant from the crime. “Eventually, the applicant’s fate depends on the trial that is yet to take place. In the meanwhile, it is inequitable to let the applicant suffer pretrial incarceration only based on the gravity of the offence, without anything more on the record to link him with the crime,” the order reads.
The Porvorim Police investigated the crime under Section 376 IPC, read with Section 8 (2) of the Goa Children’s Act, 2003, besides Section 92 of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, as well as Sections 4, 5 and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
As per the case details, on August 17-18, 2020, an unknown person came by a car, picked up the minor victim girl from the road and took her to a hotel room where he molested her. When she raised an alarm, he let her dress up and then dropped her back from where he had picked her. Though initially, the crime was registered against an unknown person, on August 21, 2020 Varun was arrested based on the statements of eyewitnesses who are said to have seen the applicant taking the victim girl.
