Goa: Goa-based artist Shireen Mody (65) -- who hailed from Mumbai -- and her gardener Praful Jana were found dead on Sunday in what the police suspect to be a case of murderous assault on each other.
Preliminary investigations suggest that there was a scuffle and Mody was hit with a blunt object, possibly an iron rod. The buzz is that the scuffle is rooted in an incident in the past.
The incident occurred at Mody’s residence at Arpora Vegas Vaddo which comes under the Arpora Nagoa Panchayat and the Anjuna Police station. "We are conducting an inquest,’’ Inspector Navlesh Dessai told reporters.
The bodies have been sent for post mortem examination. A media report quoted an eyewitness, whose statement the police recorded, as saying that Jana asked Mody to meet him in the garden shed behind the house before the alleged attack. CCTV footage from outside the residence shows Jana assaulting Mody and trying to run away from the crime scene.
But it may have been a case of murderous assault on each other: while Mody was found dead inside the house, the gardener’s body was picked from the lane outside with a head injury.
Both Mody and Jana were 65 years old. Mody hailed from Mumbai and had relocated to Goa three decades back and had her art gallery -- Studio Arpora -- close to her villa. Jana, who was from Assam, lived in the quarters in Mody’s villa.
‘We have an eye witness who saw a bleeding Jana as he tried to run. He told the witness ‘take care of her, I will be ok’ as he pointed towards the house.
We are recording that as the last statement from Jana,” added IG Jaspal Singh, reports Indian Express.com
