PANAJI
Panaji police on Friday evening arrested two more persons, including a history-sheeter, in connection with the assault on activist Rama Kankonkar. This has taken the total number of arrested accused to seven.
The fresh arrests include Franco D’Costa (28) of St Cruz, who was allegedly riding the bike of the prime accused, Anthony, who is already in custody. D’Costa, who has a single road rage case against him, is not listed as a history-sheeter, according to the police.
The seventh accused, Sairaj Govekar (20) of Pilerne, is a history-sheeter. He was among the assailants and was present with his two-wheeler during the attack.
“We are interrogating all those connected to the accused... The motive is yet to be ascertained and questioning of the accused is underway to establish how the assault was planned, executed and why,” SP (North) Rahul Gupta told reporters in a late night briefing outside the Panaji police station.
Gupta added that bikes and weapon/s seen in the assault video have been identified and will be recovered. “We are aware of who recorded the video and identifying the location of the mobile phone to seize it for investigation,” he said.
As per preliminary probe, a cable wire was used to attack Kankonkar on Thursday. Allegations of a knife, made by the victim, have not been corroborated so far while the possible use of a firearm is also being probed, Gupta added replying to media questions.
The five accused earlier arrested in the case have been identified as Anthony Nadar (31), Francis Nadar (28), Minguel Araujo (24) all from St Agustinho, St Cruz; Manish Hadfadkar (24) of Chorao; and Suresh Naik (31) of Porvorim, all of whom are history-sheeters. The accused have been remanded to five days of police custody.
