Panaji: A local court has acquitted two youths charged for murdering a Catholic priest in a South Goa village in March 2006.

Manish Dubey and Amit Shukla were acquitted by the Additional session court yesterday as the prosecution could not prove the motive behind murder of the priest.

The duo hailing from Uttar Pradesh were charged for murdering Fr Eusebio Ferrao, a parish priest at Macazana village in South Goa, 50 kms away from here.

The prosecution earlier had contended that duo killed the priest as he failed to keep up his promise of giving them a job.

The court, however, cited several loopholes in the investigation letting off the accused by giving them benefit of doubt.

Ferrao was found dead in his church quarters in March 2006 and was killed by suffocating with a pillow.

Police had arrested both these youths, in their early twenties, who had overnight stay at Fr Ferrao's residential quarter, when the murder happened.

Both of them were working in Margao town of South Goa.
Source : PTI