-- Samir Umarye PANAJI: The sessions court here on Saturday sentenced one Raju Shirke to undergo life imprisonment for stabbing to death his brother-in-law with a knife in 2008 at Bicholim. The police had charged the accused under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for killing Sanjay on October 9, 2008 in his house at Piddukarwado in Bicholim.
The police had managed to nab Shirke on the next day after he was absconding following the murder. According to the police, the accused, who was staying in the house belonging to the deceased, was carrying on tailoring work in the rear portion of the house. The dispute over the house property led to the gruesome incident, police said. During the hearing of the case, the public prosecutor S Desai pointed out that after stabbing the victim, the accused had left the house. The deposition of the family members of the deceased proves that the accused was the only other person in the house at the time of the assault, Desai argued. The prosecution also stated that the conduct of the accused in not rendering any help to his brother-in-law, when he was bleeding, also goes against him. The defence, on the other hand, argued that the case was based on circumstantial evidence and there was no proof that the accused was in the house at the time of murder. While convicting the accused, judge Nutan Sardessai held that prosecution established beyond doubt that the accused was in the house apart from Sanjay and there was no outsider present at the time of the incident. “The manner in which the injury was inflicted in umbilicus area, which proved fatal in next 15 minutes or so, would clearly establish that the accused inflicted the said injury with that degree of violence with knowledge and intent to cause the death of Sanjay” the court observed. The court has also directed the accused to pay afine of Rs 10,000.(ToI) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ISSUES BEING DEBATED: In East Africa, despite colonialism, the British afforded the Goan a sliver of a socio-political voice. Read *Into The Diaspora Wilderness* by Selma Carvalho. Soon to be available in Toronto. Pp 290. Via mail-order from [email protected] http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/
