Every crime and more particularly heinous ones like murder and rape must be meticulously investigated by apprehending the right accused. An offence of murder under 302 of IPC“ requires an act to have been committed with an intention. For an act you need to have actors and then intention. Even framing of charge is always on grave suspicion and not on mere suspicion. In that 2017 Campal Parade ground murder, leave alone grave suspicion, there was not even mere suspicion and worst still not even a prima facie case had been made out. Infact while releasing the accused on bail the High Court had observed that on perusal of the entire charge sheet there was prime facie no evidence linking the accused to the alleged murder.
Such a sad and shabby manner of investigation to merely create headlines that a case has been cracked is deplorable especially when you implicate innocent souls and label them as criminals. Nobody has the right to play Russian roulette with people’s lives.
Perhaps the real criminals in this case are still roaming the streets and having their last laugh at this shoddy investigation and perhaps may be striking elsewhere with impunity. Was this agonizing four and half year long trial over 84 hearings a criminal waste of precious judicial time? The people of Goa are then right to ask the question ‘Do the Police lack investigative skills, or do they easily succumb to external pressures and interference in the law enforcement process for all the wrong reasons?
