Babush Monserrate, the flamboyant MLA from St Cruz was finally granted bail after the evidence against him crumbled into a pile of confusion and contradiction. At this point of time it is difficult to say if the whole episode was a deliberate attempt to go easy on the MLA because it certainly wasn’t an effort to nail him. Perhaps, it was a farce enacted by the police and the government for the benefit of the people, who demand nothing short of an arrest and seldom follow the trail of evidence.
From the start the battle seemed mismatched -- a 16-year-old against an MLA with clout that goes beyond the two constituencies that he controls. In the beginning it seemed like the police had a case when they arrested Monserrate. Then came the several contradictions, exaggerations and outright lies. The most mysterious of all was the blackout period of 15 hours during which it was assumed that the girl was raped, even though she never claimed such an atrocity was committed against her. There were inconsistencies between her first statement and the supplementary one which gave rise to doubt and suspicion. After 10 days, the evidence collapsed as the police failed to get any corroboratory evidence to support the complaint.
Although the police threw its top crime policeman into the investigation, the result was rather damp. The cops did not show the enthusiasm it displayed in the Tarun Tejpal molestation case and eyebrows were raised when a special public prosecutor was not appointed to defend the evidence gathered, in court. On the first day in court there was no public prosecutor and the PI of the women’s police station was absent. The case had to be argued by a police officer. Perhaps, the lack of seriousness had something to do with the fact that the evidence was thin, but so was the evidence in the Tejpal case. The only hope for reviving the case now hangs by a bedsheet which was seized from Monserrate’s farmhouse, but the fact that the girl has not made a categorical statement that she was raped is a huge negative.
In a place where guilt is decided on whether a person is denied bail or not, Monserrate appears to have emerged triumphant from a trying moment in his political life. A chargesheet is still far away, but with all the three accused out on bail the investigation is likely to lose urgency and will, in all probability, grind to a halt.
Monserrate might have come out of this one with his political career nearly intact, but what happens to the girl? Will she continue her sojourn at Apna Ghar till she becomes a major? Will she go back to the mother whom she accused of selling her for Rs 50 lakh? Can she live in a neighbourhood which is not very far from the residence of the MLA? Her identity might not be known to the rest of Goa, but the waddo where she lived knows who she is and that would make it impossible for her to pick up the threads and move on. Life isn’t going to be the same for her and her welfare is now in the hands of the women and child welfare commission. One hopes she is able to emerge from this nightmare with enough strength to get on with her life.
