Two weeks ago on August 16, Hyderabad Police arrested a Goan drug peddler Priteesh Borkar. The narcotics wing of Telangana police realised in their investigation that Borkar was an inter-state drug peddler transporting drugs in bulk from Goa to Telengana and distributing it among the student community in Hyderabad. The narcotics wing soon found out the main suppliers, named them, spoke about the drug supply chain. Herald was the first paper to report about it
The shocking part is the Goa police when asked about the internal report of the Telangana police, either did not have a clue or pretended they didn’t know about the names in the report. A lot of Telugu newspapers have put the Herald report in their news and the police have used it in court to pursue the case of Borkar. It seems that the system deliberately or otherwise chooses to ignore issues related to drugs and drug peddlers.
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Advocate Vikram Varma, who fought this Scarlett Keeling case, said it is that the quantum of drugs involved nowadays is quite large and the fact that it has been suppressed means that it has existed with support from a few bad apples in Goa police and those in power.
“This particular aspect of narcotics is perhaps the most dangerous aspect in this society and one has to collectively work towards stopping it. Unfortunately, it has been sidelined. Instead of focusing on narcotics which has been provided to a person who has come from outside and then raped and murdered, the focus leaves out the narcotics angle, which is the foundation of weakening a person. It is continuing time and again case after case.
Dr Silvano Sapeco, former Head of the Forensic Medicine Department, Goa Medical College (GMC), said that “In cases like rape or murder when the accused gets acquitted, the doctors in the forensic medicine department are made the sacrificial lambs. Ideally speaking whenever the viscera is collected for chemical analysis, the report must be prepared in two weeks’ time and hand it over to the investigating officer for producing it in the trial court.
“But it is sad that it takes not only beyond six weeks but even much more than that. This dereliction of duty or this omission is certainly beneficial to the accused persons,” Dr Sapeco said.
When asked what the system gain by not preserving the viscera or delaying the viscera chemical analysis report since it weakens the case, Dr Sapeco said, “We don’t value the importance of submitting the crucial evidence in time. If the viscera chemical analysis is not completed in two weeks, the quality of the report suffers. Only when the case results in acquittal do we tend to see vested motives in the public prosecutor, or the trial judge or the appellate High Court judge. But actually, the damage is already been done.”
The former HoD of the Forensic Department at GMC informed that for many years Goa didn’t have its own forensic lab. The viscera and other body fluid samples used to be sent to Hyderabad or Delhi for analysis.
“We follow a unique style in Goa. We prepare the report on the same day and submit it to the investigating agency along with the sealed chemical analysis report of the viscera, biles, urine and any other body fluids desired, along with the clothes material and serological test report. After that it is between him and his authority,” Dr Sapeco said.
Earlier the samples used to be preserved in Verna. The then officer-in-charge on his own was coordinating with the forensic science lab at Kalina sometimes in Kolkata and Hyderabad to ensure that the report would come. But invariably due to bureaucratic red-tapeism this would get delayed.
“To get a viscera dispatch order, the police needs a demand draft. After the DD is sanctioned a police escort team is needed to take it to the concerned destination. All this causes an immense delay in getting the chemical analysis report in time. In my entire career, I’ve never got a viscera report in 15 days, which is the outer limit for a good report,” the forensic expert said.
Trajano D’ Mello, a political analyst who has been very vocal against the drug menace in Goa said, “The issue is although many murders have taken place due to drug consumption, drug angle has never been taken forward. Rather it has been pushed under the carpet projecting the murder angle. Therefore drugs business is thriving like nobody’s business when you have a government which encourages events where everyone knows drugs are available, what is the message you are giving?”
“I was fighting a case against an EDM festival where a girl died. I had taken it up before the court and got an expert opinion also on the matter of viscera report. After a certain period of time can’t give the quality and real cause of death as it gets diluted. After having produced it in the court, surprisingly it passed an order stating that during the festival 500-meter radius around the party venue should be sanitised for drugs. It means the court is admitting clearly that drugs are there but keeping it 500 meters away. This was the order I got from the court after putting pressure that drug sales is happening. Drugs are not being taken care of by the successive governments and the reasons are very obvious,” D’Mello said.
When asked about the similarity between Sonali Phogat’s murder case and Scarlett case, advocate Varma said, the first thing here is the easy availability of drugs.
“What I understand in this case is that the victim’s personal assistant was able to get the drugs inside the hotel they were staying in, very easily. Also when they went to Curlies restaurant and were able to get the drugs easily. That’s what the preliminary investigation by the police shows. In the Scarlett Keeling case also, the witnesses testified that when she arrived from Curlies restaurant, her gait was unsteady. The forensics letter confirmed that she was given a cocktail of narcotics at the same spot. Certain narcotics like MDMA were given by the convict to the victim for spiking her beer with narcotics in presence of another witness, who also testified in the court,” he said.
The similarity in both the cases is the absolute easy availability of narcotics and the fact that they can be provided to any woman or man to render him or her helpless so that they are unable to protect or defend themselves. Once that is done, they are easy victims.
“What we will see in future is the confidence these people have in terms of being able to get acquitted on procedural grounds or delays. In the 2017 Danielle McLaughlin rape and murder case, it has been more than five years but only 10 prosecution witnesses have been examined. In any civilized society, we could have finished the entire trial in this period. We have seen in the Nirbhaya case how Delhi Police could get all the witnesses and forensic reports and the court could give a verdict,” he said.
“We are not a third-world country. We have the capacity. But it is the intent that is missing or the resources to be provided that gives a lot of confidence to the accused as in Scarlett case,” Adv Varma added.
Dr Sapeco on similarities between Sonali Phogat and Scarlette case said ideally speaking, it appears that there were simple trivial injuries present on Phogat’s body that could have occurred due to alleged accidental falls or as a result of fits during episodes of fits due to toxicity of these narcotic substances given to her.
So is registering cases like this under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code which is punishment for murder would be detrimental to the cases and 304 which is culpable homicide not amounting to murder would be ideal?
Responding to this the forensic expert said whenever a person is charged with Section 302 of IPC, there are four tenets of law that needs to be established. First is planning, then motive, intention and the aftereffects. All these four tenants may be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the public prosecutor in front of the Sessions Judge, who will subsequently convict the accused. But one should not forget that there is also the defence lawyer who will punch holes seeing all these four tenets of love or not fulfilled to perfection.
“In Sonali Phogat’s case, what is the planning? Three or four men came together. There was a live-in relationship involved. In this case, the police can’t investigate. It is for the magistrate to order an inquest report under Section 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) (in case of a person has been killed or committed suicide or has died under suspicious circumstances). But this was not done,” ” he said.
Dr Sapeco alleged that the police knew that it was a live-in relationship, but still they suppressed it. The second issue is the intention and motive for killing Sonali Phogat. There was no material missing from her body. So there was no motive for robbery or theft involved. Now, what could be the intention of killing your own friend by these two persons?
“When we look at the aftereffects, the accused didn’t run away from the scene and we’re very much present there I think if an offence under section 304 (2) (It is applicable when there is a knowledge that death may be caused by your act), Then the trial judge will have a stronger say and if at all he feels that all the four tenants have been proved, he can increase the conviction to section 302 ideally speaking it should be under 304 (2) of IPC,” he said.
It seems that every time a local is accused of these types of crimes, they get a certain kind of comfort and protection from the system – whether it is the police, local people, or even the witnesses who don’t come forward to speak against the accused. Then finally people in the government. Is it an uncanny similarity in most cases?
Trajano D’ Mello not only agreed to it, he even added that it is practically in every case. For example in Sonali Phogat case itself, first it was said that it was a heart attack, then it was said the CCTV footage showed the accused spiked the victims drink. Why this statement came afterwards? This should have been said in the first instance itself. Is the system aiding and abiding the criminals because of few pennies? Where are you going to take this money, when you will not be able to enjoy it?
He further said that today the situation has reached a point where drugs are available outside the schools in rural go a rural areas of Goa. If our entire youth is going to get addicted to drugs what development and economy we are going to have? Goa is finished. The civil society has to stand up against this menace as they have a very important role to play.
“Goa has become a breeding place for drug peddlers and their roots have spread beyond shores of Goa like in case of Priteesh Borkar, who was supporting drugs supplying drugs in Telangana and got caught. Every drug peddler knows he can handle the system. Even though there are so many rave parties happening. Do they take sound licence, does the money come to the system? Do they follow the simple sound guidelines?” he said.
Advocate Varma said when things move, they are moved for the benefit of people for profits.
“It is the unfortunate direction we are moving in second aspect is when profit drives through sources like narcotics relentlessly, then these prophets also entail young boys and girls to be participative in the process as dealers, suppliers or carriers. Initially it is good for them as they are earning much more money than their friends and associates earn from regular jobs. But then it destroys those families. Ultimately I don’t believe that such a large chain can exist without the support of some bad apples in the system. So because of these bad apples we are heading downwards a change that one hoped for better, hasn’t happened,” he said.
So what are the flaws in the investigation that allows the accused to get away Scott free?
Responding to it Advocate Varma said, “The first reason for delay is we don’t have dedicated homicide department so the police inspector in charge of a police station, who is looking after large number of things. May be he doesn’t have time and energy that homicide cases need. So there have been number of cases where the police have preferred to call a murder as accidental death or a natural death.”
They haven’t informed the forensic department what exactly they found in the scene of crime stop and then after taking forensic report have interpreted any kind of findings for concluding it as cause of natural or accidental death. This results to not filing under FIR. FIR is filed only when a cognizable crime is committed. If you don’t file FIR immediately, then gathering of evidence, which is critical portion of trial, is adversely affected. This eventually leads to acquittals.
“This delay is fatal in a trial later on. The Scarlett murder case occurred on February 18, 2008. There were multiple injuries on the body of Scarlett. If it would have been a trained police officer in homicide, it would have given him enough time to the officer to register a FIR and begin investigations immediately. But it was a probationary officer who came to the spot, collected the body and sent it for auto speed. Her mother Fiona MacKeown was called and told that her daughter went for swimming into the sea and died.
“Three days later when Fiona came to me and said she didn’t trust the police because all the local people she met told her she was murdered. She wanted some assistance in the matter. I didn’t push for FIR till some concrete evidence of suspicion was found. Then we saw the body had injury marks. Seeing that we wrote a letter to Anjuna police stating there’s cause of suspicion due to injuries and an FIR should be registered. The police station in-charge responded saying we should contact the DySP, who in turn told us to contact the SP. Like this, there was substantial delay,” Advocate Varma said.
“These are police officers who know when murder happens, the scene of crime has to be sealed off, the evidence has to be collected. All this can be done only if a fur is registered do you still have principle of registering unnatural death and register and fire two weeks or four weeks later, a substantial portion of the evidence gets destroyed. This results in either acquittal of accused or murder getting reduced to culpable homicide. While ideally the accused should face life imprisonment, instead he or she serves maximum of 10 years in prison,” the senior advocate said.
Ruing lack of coordination between police and forensic team, Dr Sapeco said that it is important that the police investigation team takes a forensic doctor and visit the site of crime. But it doesn’t happen.
“This omission is going on for since 2008 till today. They don’t want to work in the spirit of teamwork. Somebody should bell the cat,” he said.
Citing an example Dr Sapeco said, “I remember asking the top official of both the executive and investigating agency to let me escort them to show the drugs angle in a murder case having suspected involvement of drugs. Every house In the coastal belt, having 6 to 9 meter height is having drugs inside. Obviously there’s somebody who is protecting them.”
He said that the matter was brought to the notice of police by him way back in the 1990s. “But it was allowed to remain as it is and these houses are being used for storing drugs. Once in a blue moon whenever the houses are raided some small quantity of narcotics seized and that’s the end of the story,” he said.
Dr Sapeco said that it is very easy to target the doctors but the issue is nobody takes note of the procedural lacunae that leads to falling of a case in trial Court. Ideally the crime scene should be completely screened, educe the evidence and after that only send the dead body for autopsy. But this is not happening. In fact this is beneficial to the accused persons and they manage to get acquitted.
“It is important that today all of us have to be united. It is easy to crush the doctors GMC consultants and head of departments are not united,” he said.
In the Scarlett murder case, what doctor Sapeco found and what his junior found at that moment of time both had different versions. The report of the junior doctor was found to be a mistake and finally the CBI relied upon Dr Sapeco’s version, which was earlier considered as a mistake. This report finally led to conviction.
Speaking about it, Dr Sapeco said he was thankful to public prosecutor Eijaz Khan, who with help from Advocate Varma, ensured that the chain of evidence was fortified and the conviction happened. In my report, the injuries that I had mentioned and the queries raised by investigative agency were all answered with the documentary evidence and supportive corroborated evidence from authorities, which said that it was a case of unnatural death and an element of homicide couldn’t be ruled out. But that had to be confirmed by the police.
Advocate Verma said he had gone through both the reports. In Dr Sapeco’s report, the injuries were grouped together. If there were injuries in a particular portion, he marked them as a group of injuries. As per the testimony of the police officer, these injuries were pointed out to him by Dr Sapeco, who explained how the murder happened, because he was a probationary officer and Dr Sapeco had considerable experience.
“This is the testimony given to the court. He also said that with guidance and information given by Dr Sapeco, he came back and told his superior how the murder happened and the case should be registered under section 302 of IPC. His superior retorted by saying ‘what does the doctor know? This has to be recognized as accidental death. I’ll take care of it’. It is on record. However Dr Sapeco was accused of not providing the accurate report, which is a false allegation,” he said.
Trajano D’ Mello said every death registered as murder due to drugs, the accused has only been convicted for murder and drugs angle is ignored completely so it is Totally brushed under the carpet brushed under the carpet.
Advocate Verma reminisced that in the scarlet murder case also the trial judge found from the testimony of witnesses and forensic report that the girl was given a large amount of narcotics stop the judge went on to say that “despite overwhelming evidence of narcotics being given to the victim, I see no action taken by the anti narcotics cell”.
“This casts a doubt on the credibility of investing agency and benefit of doubt is given to the accused. So when there is so much evidence reaches the court, despite all the hurdles it really appreciates it. While handing over the case to the CBI Goa government had categorically said that it must investigate the Scarlett case for murder and any other issue related to that. This gave a free hand to the CBI and Goa Police to probe the drugs angle,” he said.
The lack of intent in cracking down on drugs menace just to boost the tourism and the economy is costing the State dearly in terms of its image and future of its youth. If the State’s image becomes notorious for drugs, the quality tourists that the tourism stakeholders in Goa always yearn for, may give the State a total slip and look for better destinations. This will not be a healthy proposition for a State which is already reeling under a crippled economy.
