MAHANAND NAIK USED, MADE SCAPEGOAT? by Nisser Dias

Did Goa police off-load all their unsolved cases on him?

Last week I opened the news dailies just to read that Mahanand Naik was acquitted of yet another two murder charges alleged committed by him. With the last two acquittals serious doubts has been cast on police investigation on number of aspects.

Firstly a serious debate has started in my mind of whether the accused committed these murders at all. Even then assuming for a moment he has committed the gruesome crime of killing 18 vulnerable girls, what was the concerned police or the local intelligence bureau (LIB) of Goa police doing for one and half decade. Could they not gather even a slight hint on his criminal mind? Subsequently he was nabbed but after interrogation (possibly third degree interrogation) that went on for months he was charged murders at various police stations from Panchwadi to Sanguem.

It was in April 2009 that the accused was nabbed for raping his friend’s sister over a period of time and the Goa police claim is that during the course of his interrogation he confessed to having allegedly murdered 18 girls. Of the eight cases that have been decided he has been convicted only in this crime. But the interesting aspect is – according to police Mahanand started singing like a canary after his arrest and confessed to other crimes and his modus operandi was to entice girls with promise of marriage and then take them to an isolated spot and strangulate them with a dupatta, thus he came to be known as the ‘dupatta killer’. This is the police version. But if one goes back during the time he was being shuffled between police stations, he used to confess of the crime only at that particular police station. This cast doubts on the police investigation or rather their inability to solve unnatural death cases and for the police, Mahanand involvement of rape came at the right time so that the police could off-load all their unsolved cases on him.

This method of the police in Goa is not something new. I remember history sheeter Felix Fernandes from Cansaulim. Police attached to different police stations in Goa dumped hundreds of cases of house breaking thefts on him. The irony of it was that he was acquitted of almost 90 percent of the cases he was charged with. I strongly feel that similar strategy was used by the police in Mahanand’s case.

Otherwise how can one accept that in 2009 almost on weekly basis if not on daily basis, police at different police stations would reveal that Mahanand had confessed to new murder? For example the accused was arrested for rape and blackmail by Ponda police. Undoubtedly police used third degree method to elicit confession of the crime. (Goa police cannot investigate without the use of third degree). Simple logic tells me that the accused would confess to all the crimes at one go other then suffering third degree treatment at more than 15 police stations. Furthermore if he was involved in as many as 18 murders police top brass would have got involved in the interrogation and disclose all murders at one go. Mahanand could have been taken to respective police stations for further investigation in individual cases. But it was not so, it seems that police inspectors that had not solved unnatural deaths registered at their respective police station saw an opportunity to wipe off the pending list of cases and pushed it on Mahanand. Secondly when a corpse is found a post mortem is conducted. Its report would indicate the nature of death and if at all the victim was strangulated with a dupatta there would be ligature marks on the neck. The question is why did the police not register such cases as murder instead of registering it as unnatural deaths.

It also seems that the police did not bother much about conducting in-depth investigations in all the crimes involving Mahanand simply because they have utterly failed in linking the murders to him and that is what the courts have also observed. I can understand that direct evidence could be hard to gather given that the victims were already cremated but what about circumstantial evidence? Not that our policemen are trained or scientific investigators their method is to flog till the accused accepts the crime even he is not involved.

The police looks like found an easy way out because of the rape case. They could have been cent percent sure that Mahanand would be convicted in the rape case because of the deposition of the victim and also medical evidence. In India the sentences run concurrently the police saw an opportunity to reduce their burden and got Mahanand charged with it.

But now with Mahanand getting acquitted in seven murders the government should do some serious thinking of initiating enquiries into the investigations conducted by the police in these murders and penalise those officers responsible for shoddy investigations leading to acquittals or charging Mahanand with pseudo cases. Infact during the tenure of Manohar Parrikar as chief minister he had put into practice the system of making the investigating officers answerable for acquittals but subsequent government did not follow the trend. Worse still the police higher-ups does even take cognizance of strictures passed against the police in the judgments against the police and the result is incompetent persons become police officers or for that matter a person with criminal background is also promoted as police inspector.