PANJIM: Amidst ongoing investigations into the sexual assault of a widow at Camurlim, the victim is allegedly being pressurized to retract her statement, through those who are supporting her, sources indicated.
The victim is a widow who has a six-year-old daughter and an aged father.
Those who have been supporting the woman are being approached to ask the victim to withdraw the statement even as she lies bruised and battered recovering. Sources close to her have also accused the police of trying to play a dirty game as they have taken her statement while she recovers from her harrowing experience.
Earlier, the woman had been “approached” by one Harmalkar regarding a property issue. Now, it is not really known if the same political–goon nexus is at work here.
“She is mentally as well as physically traumatized. In this situation, certain people are pressurizing her to withdraw the case against the accused trio,” a close friend of the victim told Herald.
This is one reason why the victim, who now fears for the safety of her minor daughter, has been staying at an undisclosed location. Her six-year-old daughter is a key witness in the case as she has seen her mother undergoing the harrowing experience.
The police, on the other hand appear as if they are trying their best to cover up their inaction of not taking cognizance of the offence and of having failed to provide security to the vulnerable mother-daughter duo, or even investigating into the background of the case.
From the initial hasty registration of First Information Report (FIR) and the ensuing probe, police may have lost crucial evidence from the crime scene. This could either be due to lack of interest or other ulterior motives.
The FIR against mother Sonabai, son Jogre Sasve and daughter-in-law Bharti Sasve, days after they severely wounded the victim and their arrests followed by panchanama, is proof that the local police station was not interested to help the woman who was almost done to death, and ‘raped’, under the definition of IPC in amended rape law, as chilli powder was stuffed into her genitals.
A non-cognisable offence was registered for such a severe crime even after the Mapusa district hospital confirmed that the victim’s genitals were rubbed with chilli powder and that she had severe bruises on her body.
Chilli powder and DNA samples were not collected, and the house was washed thereby destroying crucial evidence.
The accused were thus given an opportunity to dispose of the crucial evidence including the wooden rib used to assault the victim. Only her nighty, chappals and stones have been found and recovered.
Moreover, the victim’s medical examination was carried out five days after the incident. Nonetheless, the doctors of Goa Medical College have confirmed bruises on her body. “Medical should be conducted within 24 hours of the incident which did not happen in this case. But the bruises are so deep that we could confirm the victim was subjected to brutality,” said one of the doctors. A panel of gynaecologists examined the victim for several hours.
