NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the Crime Branch to register Fr Bismarque Dias death case as murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A petition had been filed by friends and relatives of Fr Bismarque, pleading to investigate the case after registering First Information Report (FIR).
The High Court has accepted the victim’s family’s plea and directed the Crime Branch to report to the High Court in three months.
An advocate representing the petitioner had argued that the Crime Branch, instead of investigating the activist’s death as murder had probed it as an unnatural death case under Section 174 of CrPC after registering an FIR.
Fr Bismarque was found dead at St Estevam on November 7, 2015, after he went missing on November 5, 2015. The Crime Branch had submitted the investigation report on his death to the High Court.
The petitioner’s advocate had argued that the youth had seen Fr Bismarque at some other place, and that even the premises that Fr Bismarque visited near the sluice gate was doubtful. He had also argued that the youth said Fr Bismarque received a call around 11.30 pm at Babal ‘manas’ but the CDRs (call detail records) don’t show any call and that there is a contradiction in the statements of two key witnesses, which were recorded by the Crime Branch.