PANAJI
Having failed to get relief from the Additional Sessions Judge, absconding RSS member Subhash Velingkar moved the High Court of Bombay at Goa challenging the order that dismissed his plea for anticipatory bail.
The applicant sought an urgent hearing after which the Court scheduled the hearing for Thursday.
Goa Police, on the other hand, stated they have intensified the search for Velingkar. “We are following up on clues about his possible hide-outs. His close people including family members have been questioned. Search operations have been conducted in Maharashtra and Goa,” Director General of Police Alok Kumar told The Goan when asked about efforts to trace Velingkar.
"We are questioning persons who might be aware of his whereabouts," North SP Akshat Kaushal added.
Additional Sessions Judge-I Bosco Roberts, on Monday, dismissed Velingkar’s anticipatory bail plea while observing that his controversial remarks about the relics of St Francis Xavier were deliberate to incite communal tension.
The Judge also noted that the Hindu leader had admitted to making the statements attributed to him. “The manner in which the Applicant (Velingkar) has referred to the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier as a “dead body,” whose identity needed to be established from DNA analysis based purely on a conspiracy theory in a neighbouring country, without factual basis, in such a statement. Going by his track record of making statements claiming that St Francis Xavier was not “Goencho Saib”, clearly shows his deliberate intention to make malicious statements aimed at provoking religious disharmony and stoking communal tensions in the State,” the Judge stated.
With his fresh plea, it is also expected that intervention petitions would be filed seeking his immediate arrest.
