Panaji
A delegation of Mahila Congress workers led by Netta De Souza, the All India Mahila Congress General Secretary, on Friday, met the Director General of Police and requested him to re-look into the chargesheet filed against Goa Mahila Congress chief Adv Pratima Coutinho.
Addressing media persons outside the police station, De Souza said that the DGP had asked the Mahila Congress to submit a representation outlining the matter as he was not aware of the details since the case had not reached him.
“We will be submitting a representation to him, and he has told us he will re-look into the case,” said De Souza. “It is a baseless case filed against Pratima, and we are confident that we will receive justice in the High Court, but when things like this happen people lose faith in the police of the state,” she said.
“We have requested the DGP to see that his officers are more human and do not fall prey to the pressures of the current government,” said the Congress leader.
A chargesheet has been filed against Adv Coutinho after a police investigation was carried out in regard to the case of the Sanguem girl who was molested in July.
Adv Coutinho told media persons that the reason cases were being slapped against her was because the victim was molested by a driver employed on the property of Abhijat Parrikar, son of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
A case has been slapped against Coutinho under Section 34 of the IPC, Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, Section 23 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act 2012 and Section 8 (2) of the Goa Children’s Act.
Coutinho has been accused of revealing the identity of the victim girl through circulation of photos that don’t feature the victim girl, but feature her mother and Mahila Congress workers who visited the girl in July.
However, Coutinho claims that she in no way revealed the identity of the victim girl, and met her in the privacy of a home, where no media persons were present.
