By Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
Panaji, May 10: The wife of India’s one of the worst serial killer arrested in Goa is in the eyes of suspicion after the victims kin accusing her of helping her husband to get close to them.
Mahanand, 40, is being probed for his alleged involvement in killing eight young women in last 15 years. The killer is also accused of raping a girl, who happens to be his wife’s own friend.
The accused who was initially arrested for raping and blackmailing, the girl, confessed of having killed eight women, during the police custodial interrogation, which went on for days together.
Mahanand went on confessing about his sins after few of the girls’ family members appeared to the police station accusing him of `duping their young ones with the promise to get married’.
“It was Pooja who had come to our place proposing Yogita on behalf of Mahanand. She never told us that she is Mahanand’s wife,” Khushali Naik, father of Yogita, the first death to be confessed by the killer, told a local news channel.
Khushali said that on the very next day, Mahanand came to pick up his daughter from her house near Shiroda village.
Yogita was found missing from January, this year and Mahanand confessed of killing her at an isolated spot in Bambolim, a beach village next to Panaji city.
In a similar statement, another victim’s father, Shankar Naik, whose daughter Darshanand was allegedly killed by Mahanand in 1994, said that Pooja was in know of the things.
Interestingly, the rape victim, who dared to complaint against Mahanand opening pandora’s box, was also introduced to Mahanand by his wife.
“Both of them were learning music together at Shiroda. Pooja went with Mahanand to the victim’s place and helped them get befriended,” Auda Viegas, a woman activist, who is helping out the rape victim in her fight for justice, said.
She said that Pooja should be questioned by police as she must be equal partner in the crime. “How would she not inquire from where Mahanand was earning money when he was jobless all these years?,” Viegas said.
Mahanand, former auto-rickshaw driver and father of one and half year old daughter, was unemployed for several years.
The suspicion of Pooja’s involvement was also echoed by the villagers on Saturday when they led a delegation to Ponda police station demanding her arrest.
Around 50 villagers met deputy superintendent of police Serafin Dias with the demand.
Police, however, has kept silence on Pooja’s involvement. None of the officials were ready to comment on the issue stating that the case is still being investigated.
Earlier talking to reporters, Pooja had feigned innocence about activities of her husband. “Hang him if he is guilty but I can’t believe that he can do such heinous crimes. He can’t even kill an ant,” she had told reporters.