Curchorem MLA examined in Sameer Mapari’s murder case
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, MAY 19
Curchorem MLA Shyam Satardekar was on Thursday examined and cross examined in the South Goa Sessions court in connection with the ongoing trial in the Sameer Mapari murder case.
During cross examination, Satardekar said it is not true that he has come to depose before the court only because accused no one is the brother of former MLA Ramrao Desai who had contested elections against him. The MLA voluntarily said he has no enmity nor rivalry with Ramrao Desai.
Saying that he was not related to deceased Samir Mapari, Satardekar said the deceased was his voter, adding, “other than this, I had no relation with him”.
Further during cross examination, he said he does not know whether accused no one and two were campaigning on behalf of Ramrao Desai during the 2007 Assembly polls.
And, he denied a suggestion that he was sponsoring daily bread and butter to the family members of deceased Samir Mapari to come to the court during hearings of the case.
He further denied that he had kept a bus for the people from the village to come to the court on the dates of hearings of this case.
Meanwhile, the Curchorem MLA told newsmen after his cross examination that he was told by DySP Mohan Naik that the Mapari murder has taken place after he was supposed to raise the question of the attempt to murder of Marian Mascarenhas.
In his deposition before the court, Satardekar said he was approached by some prominent members from Curchorem constituency in the first week of July 2007 with public grievances, including traffic regulation in Curchorem, improvement of Ravindra Bhavan at Curchorem and the non-action by the concerned police station in the attempt to murder Marian.
Accordingly, he said he had prepared a questionnaire and submitted the same to the Goa Legislative Assembly seeking to know why no finality was attained in the police investigations in the Marian case and status of the case. He, however, said he was supposed to raise these questions on the floor of the house, but could not do so due to instability in the government.