Charge sheet filed in Monika Ghurde murder case

The Goa police on Friday filed a charge-sheet in the rape and murder case of perfume specialist Monika Ghurde.

The police have filed a 283 pages charge sheet in a trial court in Mapusa in north Goa against the security guard Rajkumar Singh (22) of the residential complex, charging him under various sections of Indian Penal Code for robbery, murder and sexual assault.

Ms. Ghurde was allegedly murdered by Singh on the intervening night of October 5 and 6. Singh was arrested in Bengaluru on October 10.

The charge sheet says that Singh who was a watchman at the colony, nursed a grudge against the victim as he was sacked as security guard after she complained that he robbed her umbrella. However, there were similar complaints against Singh, who used to also wash cars in the colony. Singh was also not paid two months salary by the society.

As per the postmortem report, death was caused due to “smothering”.

The charge sheet also has given the CCTV footage of Singh withdrawing money using the victim’s ATM card in Porvorim.

The police have also traced messages from the mobile phone of Ghurde which was robbed by the accused. The DNA report is yet to come.

Police Inspector and investigating officer Sandesh Chodankar said that the charge-sheet was filed after 87 days. Police had registered the case under sections 302, 376, 392, 458, 342 and 506 of the IPC.