Team Herald
PANJIM: The Children’s Court in Panjim has convicted Osban Fernandes and Ramesh Bagve and awarded life sentences to both finding them guilty on four counts in the infamous Merces double murder and sexual assault of minors’ case.
The case dates back to May 2013, in which a husband-wife duo was murdered by two men in what could be considered as one of the most horrific crimes in recent memory.
The incident, which unfolded after the minor survivor spilled the beans to a passerby and subsequently to the police, had sent shockwaves through the State. The victims, deceased husband (40), wife (35) and two minor survivors, son (8) and daughter (5) were all members of a Kolhapur native family.
Each accused in the case has been charged under Section 302, 307, 364 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and slapped a fine of Rs one lakh and life imprisonment. They have also been charged under Section 201 of IPC and have to undergo 7 years rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 25,000 each.
The accused have been found guilty under Section 354 (b) and have to undergo seven years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 25,000 and under Section 354 each accused is awarded 5 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000 each. Further they have been charged under Section 8 (2) of the Goa Children’s Act (GCA) and have to undergo three years of imprisonment with a fine of Rs one lakh.
Apart from the above, individually, Fernandes has been found guilty under Section 17 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and will have to undergo life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 2 lakh, while Bagve has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 2 lakh under Section 8 (2) of GCA and section 4 of POSCO Act 2012.
While Fernandes is a contractor who owns a fleet of trucks, JCB (excavator) and has many labourers working under him; Bagve and the deceased victims were among the labourers.
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CASE RECALL
+ The case was unearthed due to alert Verna resident Bonaventure D’Souza, who had noticed the five-year-old girl at Anmod Ghat
+ D’Souza had seen the minor girl at the roadside, about two kms beyond the Goa border
+ The girl had disclosed to him that her younger brother had been thrown in the bushes in the same patch so he had driven to the place and the boy had been found alive
+ The sister-brother duo had been found nude as the accused had stripped off their clothes, to hide their identification, before throwing them in the deep valley
+ When the children were being taken to GMC in the police jeep, the girl had spotted a car and a man standing next to it near Merces and had signalled to the police team that the man had killed her mother
+ The man, Fernandes, had been taken into custody for questioning, and while the car was being searched, the police team had found slippers of the children raising more suspicions
+ His questioning had led to the second accused, Bagve from Panjim.
