Goa may give out Scarlett murder case to CBI

With dramatic twist and turn the Goa government on Monday has agreed to transfer the British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling's murder case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). As of the latest report, a third man has been arrested over the murder.

The Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat while responding to opposition’s criticism on the floor of state assembly expressed his willingness to handover the case to CBI. Earlier on March 11, the chief minister had ruled out a CBI probe into the mysterious death of the young British girl expressing faith on state police.

Meanwhile the mother of the girl found dead on the beach of Goa has been provided police protection following the fear for her safety.

The 15-year-old girl who was on a holiday with her family was raped and left to die on Goa’s Anjuna beach, which later became the headlines worldwide with the manner the entire episode was handled by the state police and the alleged attempt to mask the entire episode by presenting it accidental as a case of drug fanatic, at the first instance without trying to find out the reality.

The Goa police after conducting the first autopsy had claimed that Scarlett’s death was due to drug overdose and drowning, which raised many eyebrows, as the photographs of the dead Keeling was telling altogether a different story.

Intense media pressure from both national and international, brought criticism to the Goa government, the police was asked to investigate the case further with a second post-mortem of the dead body that later revealed several facts of sexual abuse and possible murder.

On which victim’s mother Fiona MacKeown (43) alleged a cover-up by police and demanded a CBI probe. Fiona, a hippy by nature was mostly attacked by foreign media for her carelessness of leaving a teen with an unknown person but has shown the guts to challenge the entire system; a nexus between administration and drug peddlers in the ostensible tourist paradise, Goa.

Though the Goan police later arrested two suspects - Samson D'Souza and Placido Carvalho, a local drug dealer with the charge of rape and murder, but the case has been an embarrassment for Goan police who has not only failed to reach out the real slayer but for its sloppy proceedings till date.

Meanwhile, the pathologist who had carried out both the post-mortem has been suspended from his duty for allegedly leaking the report to media which shows that it was a case of forceful drowning contrary to investigating officers’ earlier claim of drowning due to drunk. Earlier a senior police officer was also suspended for his unwanted slackness in the entire case.

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