PANAJI
Even as they secured a two-day custody remand from the JMFC’s court for Deepashri Sawant e Gawas on Tuesday, Ponda police effected another arrest in the job-for-cash scam case – Sagar Naik, a police constable.
The JMFC, Ponda also granted a one-day police custody remand for Sagar on Tuesday.
Ponda police sources said, they have already seized three luxury cars and two scooters owned by Deepashri and are in the process of attaching more of her other assets.
Deepashri, said to be the mastermind of the whole job-for-cash scam had been arrested on Monday, more than a week after Mardol police had opened the lid of the scam by arresting Pooja Naik. Pooja who had secured bail in the Mardol police’s case however was then arrested by the Bicholim police in another similar case and remains in their custody.
Meanwhile, Sagar who is a police constable had been booked by the Ponda police in a case in which he is said to have taken Rs 10 lakh for promising a government job.
Sagar was also produced in the JMFC’s court and the judge remanded him to a day’s custody.
Ponda police said they expect more complaints to be filed against Sagar and have also arrested his aunt, Sunita Pauskar, who is a school headmistress.
Meanwhile, Dipashree Sawant, who had also been known by a ‘Mahato’ surname has past record of cases of cheating people by taking money for a government job. In 2012, she had taken large sums of money from one Rajaram Desai of Advai, on the pretext of giving him a government job.
She had even issued an ‘appointment letter’ of the Water Resources Department to him which was discovered to be fake upon presenting it to the WRD office in Porvorim. An FIR had been lodged in that matter and she had been arrested in it.
She hails from Saravan in Bicholim and her maiden name is Dipashree Sawant. She was married to one Prashant Mahato, a government employee from Amona then but he died in 2012 itself after their daughter was born. She later wedded Vasu Gawas from Amona in 2014.
In another development in the job-for-cash scandal, Mardol police have registered a fresh case against Pooja Naik for abetment to suicide in the case of the death of Sridhar Kanta Satarkar of Keri, the government official she is said to have implicated during interrogation.
Satarkar was missing since October 30, the day he was asked by police to join the investigation and his body was found hanging from a tree in a forested area in Kuncoliem four days later.
The abetment to suicide case was registered after Satarkar’s wife filed a formal complaint.
