April 22- April 28 2017 <http://www.goanobserver.in/category/goan-observer-issues/april-22-april-28-2017/>, Cover Story <http://www.goanobserver.in/category/section/cover-story/> BISMARQUE RESURRUCTION <http://www.goanobserver.in/2017/04/22/bismarque-resurruction/> By Rajan Narayan <http://www.goanobserver.in/author/rajan/>April 22, 2017 <http://www.goanobserver.in/2017/04/22/> 2 Comments <http://www.goanobserver.in/2017/04/22/bismarque-resurruction/#comments> [image: BISMARQUE RESURRUCTION]
*REVIVED: *The probe into the brutal murder of Fr Bismarque was reinstated by the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday, April 15, 2017 During the holy week on Tuesday, the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court resurrected the case of murder against those responsible for the death of activist priest, Fr Bismarque, under mysterious circumstances. This is the culmination of the year-long battle by a team of activists, including cyber security expert Dr Samir Kelekar. The judgement ensures that the police and the politicians cannot get away with murder of activists *By Rajan Narayan* [image: SUSPICIOUS: POlice have not been able to explain the blood strains on the shirt of the priest or the eye witness account that he was not present near the river when it was aclaimed he drowned]SUSPICIOUS: Police have not been able to explain the blood strains on the shirt of the priest or the eye witness account that he was not present near the river when it was claimed he drowned AS THE holy week culminated on Easter Sunday, the residents of St. Estevam and everyone who values freedom and justice in Goa had another reason to celebrate. Because at the start of the holy week the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court resurrected the criminal case against those who were part of the conspiracy to murder activist priest – Fr Bismarque. A former priest disowned by the church for objecting to the sale of church land to private builders. The story of Fr Bismarque started over 17 months ago when his body was discovered near a small stream, riddled with injuries. There were some beer bottles on the site where the body was found. Fr Bismarque was last seen with a group of boys with whom he had gone for a picnic by the creek. The boys later claimed that Fr Bismarque had gone for a swim but would not talk about how he lost his life. The police theory was that Fr Bismarque must have gone swimming under the influence of alcohol and drowned. Like cases of driving under the influence of alcohol which brought the wrath of the Supreme Court on bars within 500 meters of the highway. *ACTIVIST PRIEST* *FR BISMARQUE had strongly objected to builders filling up the marshy land in St Estevam which is almost an island. It is suspected that the builder who had dumped rubble and filled up the marshes and the paddy fields was none other than Pandurang Madkaikar, the local MLA, who quit the Congress on the eve of the elections and contested and won on the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, earning prompt induction into the Parrikar cabinet. Earlier Fr Bismarque had earned the anger of the Bishop for objecting to the sale of Vanxi Island off Divar to a Bangalore based land shark – Ozone builders. The island was the property of the Santa Monica convent which has now become a training centre for nuns and also houses the Museum of Sacred Art.* *VANXIM ISLAND* THE Santa Monica convent was set up by the Portuguese for the widows of officers. It was also used to recruit nuns locally. It played a major role in the culinary life of Goa as it is believed that it was the nuns who first introduced bebinca. *This is not the first time the Archbishop of Goa has sold property belonging to the Santa Monica convent. The CIBA factory which has now been taken over by an Indian company was built on land sold by the church which is why the CIBA factory still has the name Santa Monica works.* It did not suit either the politicians or the church that the criminals who murdered Fr Bismarque should be located and punished. The crime branch of the police decided that it was an accidental death. The Old Goa police refused to even register a first information report in the case. In protest the family refused to take the body from the GMC morgue. Though the first post-mortem attributed the death to drowning, the second post-mortem did not rule out foul play. *HRC Vs Bombay HC* *ONLY** as recently as last week the human rights commission to which the case was referred, requested the collector to make arrangements for the burial of the remains of Fr Bismarque. The family was not consulted. Just when the police were planning to bury the body along with the evidence of murder, came the judgement of the Goa bench of the Bombay HC which directed the police to register a first information report of murder in the case of Fr Bismarque. The court rejected the police claim that it was death due to natural causes.* Some close friends of Fr Bismarque had challenged the closure of the case by the police under the instigation of politicians. [image: SAVE GOA: Fr Bismarque was very active in the save Goa Movement and incurred the anger of the church for opposing the sale of Vanxi Island belonging to the Santa Monica convent.]SAVE GOA: Fr Bismarque was very active in the save Goa Movement and incurred the anger of the church for opposing the sale of Vanxi Island belonging to the Santa Monica convent. Among those who fought very hard to resurrect the case against the murderers of Fr Bismarque was a software engineer from Bangalore Samir Kelekar. *Samir who was based in Bangalore used to fly down every weekend to follow up on the case spending over *`*25,000 from his pocket each time. Samir also raised funds for paying a senior lawyer and moving the HC for re-opening the case and registering an FIR for murder.* It is to a large extent due to Samir’s persistence that justice was finally delivered to Fr Bismarque during the holy week when the case was resurrected. I know how passionately Samir fought to compel the police to revive the case because he used to spend the weekend before the hearing of the case on Monday at my residence at Tonca. Samir did not belong to the village of Fr Bismarque. Samir had no connection directly with Fr Bismarque. He was approached by friends of Fr Bismarque like Sandeep Dalvi and the parents of Fr Bismarque for help. I suppose activism is part of Samir’s genes as he is the son of the freedom fighter and traffic accident activist Gurunath Kelekar who heads MARG. *MATTER OF PRINCIPLE* SAMIR’S answer to my question on why he was spending so much time and money on the Bismarque case was that it was a matter of principle. *His argument was that if people did not fight cases like this the right to life guaranteed by the constitution would be meaningless. Anyone could murder anyone and get away with it. * *I know what he is talking about because I myself was almost murdered by hired goons of the then speaker Dayanand Narvekar at the Dona Paula Circle. I had forced Narvekar to resign for allegedly molesting his 20 year old secretary. The day after he resigned he hired goons to beat me with iron rods. Fortunately I heard footsteps behind me in the dark night as they had switched off the transformer and I had ducked my head. * *If they had hit me on my head I would have also have directly gone to hell or heaven like Fr Bismarque. And the police of course would have called it an accidental death.* *HIGH COURT JUDGMENT* *THE High Court judgment in the Fr Bismarque case is a major landmark. It will particularly come to the help of the hundreds of foreigners who either just disappear or are found murdered on the Goan beaches like Scarlet Keeling and more recently Irish tourist Danielle McLaughlin. In the case of Danielle, the police claim to have found the culprit. But whether he is the actual culprit, whether he was acting alone, and whether the police can make out a case resulting in his conviction, only time will tell.* In the case of Fr Bismarque we are happy that thanks to the efforts of his family and friends, including the late Satish Sonak, the case has been re-opened and the High Court has directed the police to file a first person report on the charge of murder. *The court has also directed the police to re-open the investigation. Since Pandurang Madkaikar who is among the main suspects is back in power as part of the ruling party it is useless giving the responsibility to the police. **The case should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation or to the National Investigation agency. It is not a matter of Fr Bismarque. It is a matter of the freedom of every one of us to protest against injustice. If murderers are allowed to get away, people will be frightened to fight corruption and fascism. * *Crime Branch asked to submit report every three months* The Bombay High Court at Goa on Tuesday, April 11, 2017, directed that the Crime Branch register an FIR based on the complaint filed by Mario Dias the brother of deceased Bismarque Dias agreeing with the argument that an investigation under an FIR is qualitatively different than an investigation done under section 174 of the code of criminal procedure. Disposing of two petitions filed separately — one filed by Kennedy Afonso, Sudeep Dalvi and Samir Kelekar and another filed by Maria Monteiro e Dias representatives of the family of activist Dias, the court opined that the “state owes an obligation to the deceased and his family that investigation into the cause to solve the alleged crime has been duly conducted.” *“On perusal of the complaint (lodged by Mario Dias on November 7, 2015) it prima facie does disclose the commission of a cognizable offence. The police are not justified in refusing to register an FIR.”* “The fact remains that ultimately a conclusive solution to the manner in which the deceased had died has not been explained by any pointed and reliable evidence,” the court observed. *“The state owes an obligation to the deceased and his family that an investigation be carried out to solve an alleged crime has been duly conducted. All aspects duly considered suggest that the petitioners are not satisfied and have brought to our notice different aspects remain unsolved,” the court observed.* The petitioners pointed out that Dias who was an activist who took up different issues concerning him and had filed complaints against various persons went missing on November 5, when he was last seen alive leading to various inquiries in the village about his whereabouts. The petitioners also pointed out contradictions in the various versions of persons who had met him on the day until November 7, when his body was found floating in the River Mandovi. The contradictions gave rise to suspicions that the investigations have not been fair or in accordance with law. Two autopsies later and after two separate investigations both by the Old Goa Police Station and the Crime Branch, who submitted their reports to the Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM), the SDM passed an order under section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on April 21, 2016 that the deceased died due to asphyxiation and hence a result of drowning in water and the cause of death was classified as an accidental death. Aggrieved by the decision, the petitioners approached the High Court calling for records in the proceedings, to quash the order of the SDM and further to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct an investigation in the manner of death after registering an FIR. Brother of Bismarque, Mario Dias had lodged a complaint alleging foul play in connection with the death and it was the contention of the petitioners that the investigation done was not in accordance with law and that the SDM was not justified in recording the death as an accidental death. In response, the prosecution disputed the claims saying that the death was investigated by two agencies — the local police station as well as the Crime Branch — which along with the help of the family lawyer Adv Jos Peter de Souza who was taken on board in the investigation but arrived at the same conclusion. Crucially, Adv S S Kantak appearing for the activist petitioners pointed out that investigations under section 174 of the CrPC were qualitatively different than that done after registering an FIR and that on a bare perusal of the complaint of the brother of the deceased would itself disclose the commission of a cognizable offence and that the prosecution had no justification to refuse to register an FIR. “We are of the considered opinion to seek the registration of an FIR based on the complaint dated November 7, 2015 as expeditiously as possible and to submit a report every three months,” the division bench of the Bombay High Court at Goa revealed. *Bismarque’s death registered as murder (Herald Aug 27)* PANJIM: The Crime Branch ( CB) on Wednesday registered a case of murder in the death of social activist Fr Bismarque Dias, whose body was found in mysterious circumstances in November 2015. The CB will now re- investigate the case following directions from the High Court of Bombay at Goa, earlier this month directing it to file a murder case. The CB was also directed to file a status report every three months, till the investigation is completed. In the FIR registered on Wednesday evening, CB has charged unknown persons with the murder of Fr Dias. “ Unknown accused persons assaulted Bismarque Dias, most probably with weapons and threw his body in water thereby committed murder,” the FIR states. The late priest’s friends had approached the court to get the case transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) and had also sought for a FIR to be registered to bring out the truth behind the death. Register Fr Bismarque case as murder: High CourtTNN | Updated: Apr 12, 2017, Times of India [image: Representative Image] PANAJI: *The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday directed the crime branch of the Goa police to file a murder case in the mysterious death of social activist Bismarque Dias <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Bismarque-Dias> in November 2015. Additionally, the crime branch has also been directed to file a status report every three months, till the investigation is completed. * Special public prosecutor in the high court S R Rivonkar <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/S-R-Rivonkar> told TOI that the court has directed the crime branch to register a first information report (FIR) in the Bismarque <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Bismarque> death case as per the complaint file by the deceased's brother, Mario Dias, and investigate accordingly. The court has not set aside the investigation conducted by the crime branch under section 174 of the CrPC, he added. Bismarque' friends had approached the court to get the case transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Central-Bureau-of-Investigation> (CBI). They had also sought for a FIR to be registered to bring out the truth behind the death. *"This order is the victory of Bismarque's supporters, disciples, followers and lovers. It is also a tight slap to the police department in particular, and the government in general, who wanted to bury the case under the name of accidental death due to drowning.* Out heartiest thanks to our team of advocates, Subodh Kantak, Chaitanya Padgaonkar, Shriniwas Khalap and Ryan Menezes <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Ryan-Menezes> for their tireless efforts, which lead to our victory," one of the petitioners Sudeep Dalvi said after the court order. On November 6, 2015, Bismarque went missing after he went for a swim at night along with two boys from St Estevam. Next day, his body was found floating in the Mandovi river, near Cupa at St Estevam island. Dias was last seen at the Babal sluice gate, a water body on the north-eastern part of the St Estevam island along the Mandovi river. *Police claimed the death was due to drowning,* but Bismarque's friends, family and some social activities refused to accept this version. They alleged that the Old Goa police did not carry out a proper investigation and asked that the case be transferred to the crime branch. Following the direction of then chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Laxmikant-Parsekar>, the case was transferred to the *crime branch, who concluded after investigation that there was no foul play and that death was due to drowning, and closed the case*. Investigate Bismarque’s death as murder and report in 3 months, High Court tells Crime Branch April 12, 2017 Target Goa Our salute to Sudeep Dalvi and friends and family of Fr Bismarque Dias who never gave up the fight for justice. The *High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the Crime Branch to register Fr Bismarque Dias death case as murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The Crime Branch has to report to the High Court in three months.* This is a huge shot in the arm to friends and family of Fr Bismarque who were frustrated at the refusal of the government of Goa and the Goa police to investigate his death as murder. All that the Goa Government was required to do was do due diligence. They refused. *This ruling is significant since moves are on to remove Fr Bismarque Dias’ body from the morgue. Once his body is interred, the case would die a natural death. Now that the High Court has stepped in the police will have to make a very good pretence of investigating Bismarque’s death.* A petition had been filed by friends and relatives of Fr Bismarque, pleading to investigate the case after registering a First Information Report (FIR). Fr Bismarque was found dead at St Estevam on November 7, 2015, after he went missing on November 5, 2015. The Crime Branch had submitted the investigation report on his death to the High Court. The petitioners told the court that youth in the village had seen Fr Bismarque alive at a different place than the one he was presumed to be at prior to his death. The allegation that Bismarque even visited the sluice gate was called into question. The youth who allegedly accompanied Fr Bismarque to the manas to drink beers say that Bismarque received a call at around 11.30 pm while he was at Babal Manas with them. The call detail records do not show any call coming in at that time. The two youth who claimed they were with him that fateful night that Bismarque went missing said that he consumed large quantities of beer. Yet the autopsy conducted on Bismarque’s body showed less than 100 ml of urine. Also, it was known to family and friends that Bismarque had no money to spend after the Church abandoned him. The petitioners pointed out to many discrepancies in the youths’ statements and since they were the two key witnesses, the Crime Branch should have investigated more rigorously. Instead the investigation itself looks like a massive cover-up. *Despite public pressure to investigate the death of Bismarque as a murder, the Goa Government refused to do so. Activists who held a candlelight protest were beaten up and taken into custody. Bus loads of protesters from South Goa were stopped at Cortalim itself and not allowed to proceed to Panjim. All these actions on the part of the government points out to a massive cover up of a popular environmental activist’s death.* *Fr Bismarque Dias had stopped many illegal projects and had been fighting against the sale of Vanxim island, the taking over of Tiracol village for a golf course and shady land deals in his village of St Estevam itself. Fr Bismarque had made many powerful enemies, because he could not be paid off to close his eyes and look away. Neither could he be threatened. The only solution would be a final one. Now it is up to the police, the activists, the citizens of Goa and the High Court to see that justice is done.* [image: bismarqueprotest1]Protesters over the government coverup of Fr Bismarque’s death get a new impetus to continue the fight for justice. [image: bismarque protests]Protesters shoved into black maria’s and hauled off to jail [image: bismarqueprotest2]Candlelight protests seeking justice for Fr Bismarque. [image: bismarqueprotest3]Fr Bismarque Dias has the last laugh as Crime Branch are put in a tizzy. Police register Bismarque death as murder on receiving HC order Story: the goan I network | 27th April 2017 *The Goa Police on Wednesday finally received a copy of the High Court order directing it to register an FIR in the mysterious death of activist Bismarque Dias, prompting them to register the FIR on the same evening.* PANAJI Speaking to The Goan, Superintendent of Police Priyanka Kashyap said that the case was registered under section 302 (murder) against unknown persons based on the complaint of his brother Mario Dias who said he suspected foul play in his brother’s death. “We have received a copy of the order officially today at 7 pm. We have registered a case under section 302 of IPC as directed. Further sections could be added depending on the investigations,” Kashyap told The Goan. The Bombay High Court at Goa while disposing two petitions one filed by the family and another by a trio of activists r*uled that since the complaint revealed the commission of a cognizable offence the police were not justified in not registering an FIR. * “On perusal of the complaint (lodged by Mario Dias on November 7, 2015) it prima facie does disclose the commission of a cognizable offence. The police are not justified in refusing to register an FIR.” “The fact remains that ultimately a conclusive solution to the manner in which the deceased had died has not been explained by any pointed and reliable evidence,” the court observed. *“The state owes an obligation to the deceased and his family that an investigation be carried out to solve an alleged crime has been duly committed. All aspects duly considered suggest that the petitioners are not satisfied and have brought to our notice different aspects remain unsolved,” the court observed. * After two autopsies, which arrived at similar conclusions and after two separate investigations by the Old Goa Police Station and the Crime Branch, who submitted their reports to the Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM), the SDM passed an under section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on April 21, 2016 that the deceased died due to asphyxiation and hence a result of drowning in water and the cause of death was classified as an accidental death. - See more at: http://englishnews.thegoan.net/story.php?id=32341#sthash.dwgEIJIV.dpuf No murder charge for now in Bismarque death case: DIGTNN |* Nov 13, 2015, Times of India* Panaji: Goa police has ruled out adding murder section to social activist Bismarque Dias death case as of now as there is no prima facie evidence which suggests homicidal death. The police said they are open for probing all the suspicions raised by Dias' family members and NGOs. Police are yet to collect fingerprints from the beer bottles to ascertain whether any fourth person was at the spot. The Goa police on Thursday sent the viscera for chemical analysis to central forensic laboratory, Hyderabad. They have also written to the lab director to do the viscera examination at the earliest. After receiving the viscera report, the police will get the final opinion on Dias's death from Goa medical college and hospital, Bambolim. Speaking to mediapersons, deputy inspector general of police (DIG) V Renganathan said, "For registering the FIR (under Section 302 murder) you need prima facie some kind of fact which suggests that it is a homicidal death. No ante-mortem injuries and the first postmortem says asphyxia due to drowning in water. If there is a stab injury or any kind of injury which suggests cause of death then definitely the case will be registered without any waiting or without any agitation." Police said that the statement of both the boys, who had accompanied Dias to the swim, have been recorded and is being verified. So far the police have not found any suspicious activity on their part. "We are approaching this particular matter with an open mind," he added.
