MARGAO: The Colva police have arrested Mangala Sidnal and her alleged lover Suraj Mugeri, in connection with the murder of 35-year-old Vishwanath Sidnal, the tile-fitter who was found dead in Pedda-Benaulim on Tuesday.
According to Sunita Sawant, Superintendent of Police for South Goa, investigations revealed that Mangala Sidnal, 27, had been involved in an affair with Suraj Mugeri, since Std VIII. Despite being married to, and having a child with Vishwanath, Mangala was unhappy in her married life in Benaulim.
Police investigations further revealed that Suraj Mugeri, who is married to a deaf-mute woman, desired to marry Mangala. This was the motive that led them to plan and execute the murder of Vishwanath, according to the police.
Sawant stated that investigations unveiled a premeditated plan by both accused to murder the deceased six months prior, culminating in the fatal attack on March 25 in the early hours.
SP Sawant said Mangala confessed during interrogation that she, along with her boyfriend Suraj, killed her husband by striking him on the head with a heavy, blunt object near his right ear. They then fled the scene with Mangala’s five-year-old daughter on the deceased’s motorcycle. CCTV footage captured two individuals along with a minor girl leaving Pedda-Benaulim on a motorcycle.
On March 26, an FIR under Section 302 of the IPC was registered based on the complaint lodged by the deceased’s father Shankar Sidnal, who lives in Mungul. Police conducted a panchanama and enlisted the assistance of the Goa State Forensic Science Laboratory, fingerprint experts, a dog squad, and a police photographer. Mangala was produced before a Judicial Magistrate First Class in Margao and remanded to seven days of police custody for further investigation.
Following efforts to locate the accused, Colva Police apprehended Suraj Mugeri in an under-construction building in Kadoli, Belagavi on Wednesday. He was brought to Goa late Wednesday night, and taken to South Goa District Hospital for medical examination. On Tuesday afternoon, the body of Vishwanath Sidnal, a native of Londa in Karnataka, was found by his mother, at the rented room where he had lived with his wife and child for the past three years.
The deceased’s body was transported to the South Goa District Hospital for a post-mortem examination.
Investigations are ongoing, with police efforts focused on recovering the murder weapon and locating the motorcycle used by the assailants to flee the scene.
