Homicides shock Goans

3 partially burnt womens bodies found in 48 hours

Only one of the victims, Evita Rodrigues, 16, has been identified. She had been reported missing by her family on Saturday. Her burnt body with the face disfigured to conceal her identity, was recovered from a deserted location off the highway at Verna, South Goa late on Monday. The teenaged girl had been strangled to death a day after another young woman’s body was found also partially burnt in Merces, North Goa, the police said.

A third victim’s body turned up on Tuesday close to Mapusa, bearing similarities in the criminal violence used on her as well. This victim, also in her early twenties, had been spared the scarring of her face, but attempts had been made to get rid of her body by burning. The police said the woman was well dressed, had mehendi on her hands and vermillion on her forehead, and might have been recently married.

Superintendent of Police A V Deshpande said it was too premature to surmise that the three cases were linked or that they were the work of the same killer or killers. No doubt, the coincidence in the manner the bodies were being disposed of to destroy the evidence is strange, but the women all came from different backgrounds, he said.

Police sources, however, said that the modus operandi in the three cases were too similar to rule out a connection.