MARGAO
The trial in the sensational Swapnil Walke cold-blooded murder case is all set to commence in the South Goa Sessions Court.
Court sources informed that the Sessions Court will hear the arguments before framing of charge against the accused before the trial starts.
Six persons, including three who committed the murder, and as many accused nabbed for procuring the pistol, have been cited in the murder conspiracy.
The crime branch has cited around 113 witnesses in support of its case, including 10-11 eyewitnesses, who had seen the accused fleeing from Krishni Jewellers after committing the offence.
While accused Mustafa Sheikh, Evander Rodrigues and Omkar Patil have been charged under section 302 of the IPC for murder, attempt to commit robbery (398), destruction of evidence (201) and criminal conspiracy (120-B) of the IPC, besides provisions of the Arms Act, the three accused from Bihar Kundan Kumar, Shani Kumar and Rahul Kumar have been charged under various provisions of the Arms Act.
A glance at the brief facts of the chargesheet states that the accused Mustafa Shaikh, Evander Rodrigues and Omkar Patil had hatched the criminal conspiracy to eliminate the owner of Krishni Jewellers Swapnil Walke by procuring illegal countrymade pistol of 7.65 calibre bore from accused Kundan Kumar with the assistance of accused Rahul Kumar and Shani Kumar, the natives of Bihar.
As part of the conspiracy, the accused Mustafa Sheikh, Evander Rodrigues and Omkar Patil used the illegal pistol and fired on the victim on September 2 and stabbed him with a knife with the sole intention of committing murder and robbery. Due to resistance by the victim, however, the accused failed to commit robbery, the chargesheet stated.
“Taking into account holistic and logical perspective on the entire gamut of evidence collected during the course of the investigation submitted herewith in the form of statements of witnesses, supplementary statements of witnesses, report of TI parade, documents collected from various agencies, travel details, call details, CAF of the SIM card holders, attachments of vehicles used in crime and materials collected from the scene of crime, it is revealed that the accused persons Mustafa Sheikh, Evander Rodrigues and Omkar Patil hatched a criminal conspiracy and procured the illegal country-made pistol of 7.65 calibre with ammunition from accused persons from Bihar,” the chargesheet stated.
The Crime Branch had attributed the murder as part of a conspiracy hatched by the accused with the intention of committing murder and robbery at Krishni Jewellers, Margao.
