Goa: Tale of a village where Serial Killer Mahanand Naik Lived
Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Goa
Shiroda (Goa), May 6: A sleepy village adjoining temple town of Ponda in North Goa is suddenly baffled with the developing story of a serial lady killer who has confessed of killing four young women living around the village in last 15 years.
Taravalem, a village, 50 kms away from Panaji, is wearing a tensed look after Mahanand Naik (40), who was arrested for raping his wife’s friend has opened up pandora’s box during the police investigation.
The frail looking married man, who is having a four year old daughter, has confessed of killing five women in last 15 years. Mahanand, former rickshaw driver and currently unemployed husband of the woman working with Indian council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) used to befriend girls and kill them by luring them to isolated spots.
“He has confessed of five crimes and many more are likely to be revealed in near future,” deputy superintendent of police Serafin Dias said. at Ponda police station.
Mahanand’s house is in ashes right now as the mob last week burnt it on May one, after he confessed of killing three girls. Every passing day, the count of Mahanand’s sin is increasing and according to the police, they suspect his involvement in three more killings taking the toll to seven.
“All girls hail from lower middle class families who used to get entrapped in Mahanand’s net as he used to promise them to get married,” Dias states.
On the D-day, he used to call them loaded with jewellary to introduce them to his father or sister and later kill them to rob away the gold.
The victims: Yogitha Naik and Darshana
The list of Mahanand’s prey includes – Darshana Naik (1994), Vasanti Gawade (1995), Kesar Naik (2007) and Yogita Naik (2009). While in two cases he abandoned the body, in rest two he threw them in river after robbing the gold.
Back to Taravalem, the village, which is entirely dependent on agriculture for its sustainance, the unfolding mystry of Mahanand’s killings, have baffled the entire village.
Lying in the ashes is Mahanand’s house which is situated just next to Government Primary School. “I don’t know him much… We never used to talk to his family,” a young lad, who refused to name himself and talk on Mahanand, said.
The reaction represents the entire village where no one is ready to talk about this guy next door.
The sanctum sanctorum in the house, is the only intact thing in the structure, which used to house Mahanand’s joint family. On May 1, the unidentified mob burnt the house into ashes.
“It was outburst of people’s anger. It’s immaterial that the house was vandalized. We are ashamed of his activity and boy has brought bad name for the entire village,” Subash Shirodkar, former Shiroda legislator and current Goa Pradesh Congress Committee Chief, told PTI.
“Issue is that his house was vandalized or burnt, the issue is the cold blooded murders that he committed,” Shirodkar quips advising the media that they should not sensationalise the issue of `house burning.’
“When I heard the news about serial killing, I felt very sad. This should not have happened to such a peaceful village,” Shirodkar, who represented the village for almost three decades only to lose in the last assembly elections, said.
Many victims would have been saved from the agony, if Mahanand was arrested in 1995 itself.
Deputy superintendent of police Serafin Dias admitted that the police had arrested Mahanand in 1995 when Vasanti Gawade’s cousin, Raghunath, had told the police that his sister was seen last time with the killer.
“Police had to release him after rickshaw operators from Ponda city led morcha to the police station in support of Mahanand,” the DySP conceded.
Mahanand used to operate rickshaw of his own till 2005 and gave up the profession after his vehicle became old and had to be scrapped. “Thereafter, he was doing nothing,” Dias said.
Police revealed that Mahanand was staying back home to look after his ailing four year old daughter while his wife worked with ICAR.
“He was never active in social life… I never saw him in the villager although I toured the village for last several years. I saw him just 15 days back,” Shirodkar said.
The GPCC chief, who runs a chain of educational institutes in Shiroda village adjacent to Taravalem, said that Mahanand’s family was never politically inclined towards any party. “They were not active socially,” he said.
Mahanand was arrested on April 20 and thereafter the eerie of silence has descended on Taravalem village. The doors are shut for unknown people who utter word `Mahanand.’ And as this reporter went to the village on Tuesday, the only quote got from the villagers is that `Mahanand’s wife is not in the village. You need to go to Sanvordem town where she has shifted with her parents.’
Rest was just silence laced with complete disgust over the serial killer, who has allegedly committed the most heinous crime in the coastal state of Goa.