By IANS,
Panaji : The Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court Tuesday asked the Goa police to file within seven days a charge sheet against Rohit, state Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate’s son, for the rape of a 14-year-old German girl.
The bench comprising Justice S. B. Majumdar and Justice Nelson Britto told Advocate General Subodh Kantak to direct the police to file a charge sheet.
The court had earlier pulled up the Goa police for their shoddy investigation in the case and had asked the investigating officers to do better.
About two months ago, Bombay High Court Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar along with Justice S. A. Bobade, while taking up the matter suo moto, had said: “If newspaper reports are correct even to some extent, then they demonstrate the apathy of the police machinery towards the rule of law”.
In another development, Justices Majumdar and Britto directed the advocate general to instruct the state police to deploy police personnel at sensitive places and beaches in the state.
The high court direction follows numerous incidents of rape of foreigners and local women on Goan beaches, the latest involving a Dutch tourist who claimed to have been drugged, looted and raped by a gang of Nigerians at Vagator beach, a popular tourist destination, on New Year’s eve.
The police had, in an unsigned press note, neither confirmed nor denied rape confusing the case further. The controversial press note said that the complainant was not interested in sharing information with the police.
“The complainant does not wish to reveal any further details and in case she has any further queries, she has assured to keep in touch with the police,” the press note read.