Panaji: Absconding former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Goa Chief Subhash Velingkar has moved the High Court of Bombay at Goa seeking anticipatory bail, after failing to get respite from Additional Sessions Judge-I. The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.
The Additional Sessions Court had dismissed Velingkar's plea seeking anticipatory bail into the FIR accusing him of making offensive statements about the relics of St Francis Xavier at Old Goa. Velingkar has been absconding since then.
The Bicholim police charged him with making provoking statement to create communal disharmony and evaded two notices.
While he continues to evade the police, search is still underway.
“Multiple searches continue to locate Subhash Velinkar in Goa and Maharashtra. We are also questioning persons who might be aware of his whereabouts,” North SP Akshat Kaushal said.
The Additional Sessions Judge – I Bosco Roberts observed that the RSS member's controversial remarks were deliberate to incite communal tension.
"The manner in which the Applicant (Velingkar) has referred to the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier as a “dead body,” whose identity needed to be established from DNA analysis based purely on a conspiracy theory in a neighbouring country, without factual basis, in such a statement. Going by his track record of making statements claiming that St Francis Xavier was not “Goencho Saib", clearly shows his deliberate intention to make malicious statements aimed at provoking religious disharmony and stoking communal tensions in the State,” the Judge observed while denying him anticipatory bail.
