ST ESTEVAM: It’s actually out there. A thing called TRUTH, an extremely complex entity for the Old Goa police, which has either been refusing to see it, or is clinging on to a lifeline of lies, to pass off Father Bismarque’s death an accident, and helped by certain sections of the media to spin this. As Mr Krishna Sinari, PI Old Goa drove his private Swift car for his investigation (where is the police jeep?) onto the St Estevam ferry to reach the island at 4.29 pm (Herald knows since the Herald reporter also parked his car next to Sinari’s on the same ferry), he was in deep thought. He was told that a vest which most certainly belonged to Father Bismarque was discovered by locals twelve days after his death, on the same road, which was used by the two boys who were seen with him. He reached the spot after a long walk through the thorny bushes at around 5 pm, a good two and half hours after he learnt of the discovery. Many theories and conclusions of this being an accident were about to be seriously challenged.
As the Investigating Officer, who in his report, had dismissed this as an
accidental death by drowning, he needs to explain this criminal negligence in not being able to spot such crucial bits of evidence lying close to the spot where the body of the victim, Father Bismarque, was found.
The manner in which the police have dealt with Darren the 18-year-old and the 17-year-old who were apparently drinking with him in the early evening and then late at night at the Babal manos, is suspicious. The two who hold the key to cracking this case have been questioned but not treated as suspects, according to the last seen formula. Darren’s absence from his house for two days prior to Father Bismarque’s death and the route taken by the boys the morning after (when Father Bismarque was already dead) has not been probed. It is obvious that the police did not patrol or toothcomb this route, where the blood-stained vest identified as Father Bismarque’s was found.
Even after the vest was recovered, the police team left the spot without even bothering to pick up the beer cans lying next to the vest, which could easily have been consumed by someone who could have had a scuffle with Father Bismarque. It is important to realise that this is a desolate spot and not a thoroughfare and the cans wouldn’t have arrived by chance.
When Herald politely asked PI Sinari if he could speak a few words on his findings, he replied curtly, “I am busy”. If he indeed had been, he would have found the blood-stained vest lying on the bundh, in 12 days and not the locals. He would have pressed a sniffer dog into service and cordoned the area and he would have interrogated the two boys, who are key to unlocking this case.
He should now be very busy responding to these points.
