PONDA

The Additional District and Sessions Court in Ponda on Saturday rejected two anticipatory bail applications filed by a priest at Goa’s Mangeshi temple in a molestation case.

A senior police officer said, that the accused, Dhananjay Bhave, could not be traced after the Additional District and Sessions Court in Ponda cancelled the applications of the priest, who has been booked for allegedly molesting two women in June.

“We are on the lookout for him,” he said.

In July, Bhave was booked in two separate cases under section 354 (outraging modesty) of the Indian Penal Code, after two victims, including a Goan-origin student studying medicine in the US, complained to the police, that the priest had allegedly molested them by hugging and kissing them near the sanctum sanctorum of the Magueshi temple.

Before approaching the police, the complainants had approached the Shree Manguesh Devasthan Committee, which had said that it could not find any dependable evidence to establish a prima facie case against Bhave.