THE GOAN NETWORK
MAPUSA
A petty quarrel over failure to share alcohol ended in murder when a man from Uttarakhand was arrested at Anjuna in the wee hours of Monday on charges of stabbing his friend from Shimla-Himachal Pradesh.
According to police, the incident had taking place at about 7.30 pm on Saturday, as the accused, Gopal Singh (38) and his friend Santosh Gautam (46) had met in the Calangute market area for a drink.
Singh had brought another friend that day and had asked Gautam to divide the alcohol into three equal portions. Gautam refused to do so and an argument broke out between Singh and Gautam.
Gautam allegedly grabbed an empty bottle in a bid to strike the accused, but Singh pulled out a knife and Gautam tried to flee from the site.
The accused ran after Gautam and attacked him with a knife near Tito's junction/ before fleeing away.
In the absence of CCTV footage in the area, police could not identify the accused but manage to locate the Aadhaar Card with the deceased and shortlisted seven suspects. One of the suspects then revealed the identity of the accused and said he had tried to scare them with a knife. It was also disclosed that the accused was employed at a tea stall in Nagoa-Arpora.
The police then contacted the hotel manager, who refused to acknowledge employment of the accused and instead, asked the police to contact the hotel owner. The hotel owner was also clueless, but one of the hotel workers said the accused was an alcoholic who had been working in the hotel.
Based on some photos produced by the workers, police found that the accused had given a false name to the hotel owner and other workers.
The police then found out that Singh works with a Russian woman in Anjuna and visited the place.
On learning that the police had visited her house, the Russian woman went to the Calangute police station and said two persons, one of them called Gopal, works with her and had even joked about having committed a murder in Calangute.
Later with the help of Anjuna police, Calangute police arrested the accused while he was asleep in the open near a restaurant in Anjuna in the early hours of Monday.
Police said the accused confessed to the crime and later recovered the weapon allegedly used in the offence.
Incidentally, Singh was earlier arrested by the Panaji Police in March on charges of stealing two mobile phones, but a court in Panaji released him in August for insufficient proof against him.
