MARGAO
History sheeter Hazrat Ali Sheikh alias Tiger Anwar is dead and gone after his brutal murder at Savanur-Karnataka on Sunday, but the trial against the five accused charged in the attempt to murder him near the Arlem circle at Fatorda earlier this year will go on unhindered.
That’s not all. With his demise, all the cases and trial proceedings pending against the history-sheeter will now abate. His accomplices, however, will have to face the trial if they have been booked for the offenses along with Tiger Anwar.
Charges against the five accused arrested in the Tiger Anwar attempt to murder case were framed by the South Goa Sessions Court last week in the incident that occurred on February 16 near the Arlem circle, Fatorda.
With his death, the proceedings in the Sessions Court will not abate, legal experts told The Goan. Though Tiger Anwar is the complainant in the attempt to murder case, his death does not stop the wheels of justice and the trial will go on irrespective of his death, informed senior prosecutor S B Faria.
Faria, who is now the Special Public Prosecutor representing the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Goa, said the death of the complainant does not in any way prove fatal to a criminal trial. “Criminal trial will continue against the accused in the attempt to murder case. The proceedings will go on unhindered and the prosecution will examine the witnesses cited in the case,” he said.
Another legal expert pointed out that the High Court of Bombay in 2016 had settled the legal proposition that the death of the main accused does not absolve charges or abates trial against other allied accused in the case.
A glance at the criminal cases registered at various police stations in South Goa indicates that while Tiger Anwar was the sole accused named in the FIRs, there are a couple of cases wherein the offenses were registered against others along with the main accused.
A senior police officer informed that a Vasco murder case had ended up in conviction a couple of years ago even though the complainant had died during the pendency of the trial. “In the Vasco case, even the Supreme Court had upheld the verdict handed out by the trial court against the accused though the complainant had died during the pendency of the trial,” the officer said.
