One held, murder case filed in British girl’s death

The state police had earlier in the day detained three persons in connection with the murder of British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling.

While the police had throughout maintained that Keeling’s death was an accidental one, a second autopsy report has changed the course of investigation with the police registering the death as murder.

Keeling was found dead on Goa’s popular Anjuna Beach on February 18 in semi-nude condition. Her family members suspect that she was raped and murdered.

After the media focus and political lobbying, the state Government had ordered the second autopsy, which recommended that the death be investigated as “murder”.

The second autopsy showed that she had received more than 50 bruises, as against the first autopsy report that showed five bruises on her body. The second autopsy showed that half of the 50-odd bruises the girl had on her body were ante-mortem.

“We have registered the case under 302 of the IPC, which means we are probing her death as a murder,” North Goa Superintendent of Police Bosco George said.

George, along with the team offficials and investigating officer Braz Menezes, rounded up three suspects in the afternoon. The police are on the lookout for four more persons who were seen with the deceased girl a few hours before her death.

A shack owner, at whose outlet Keeling was partying along with other boys on the fateful night, was interrogated by the police, sources said.

The police said they were probing in detail and would link the whole sequence leading to Keeling’s death.

IGP Kishan Kumar said the investigations were carried out based on the first autopsy report. “Why did the doctors not then tell the police about the bruises and possibility of homicide,” Kumar shot back replying to a question during a press conference on Sunday afternoon.

The IGP, however, could not reply as to why the case was shifted from one officer to another if investigations were on proper track. “I don’t know anything about it. I was on leave and joined just two days back,” Kumar said.