Sub-Inspector taken off, Goa CM doesn’t rule out CBI probe

He also said the Government “had always maintained that if the second autopsy indicated a possibility of homicide, we would go to the root cause of the matter… Which is exactly what we are doing.”

“I have also ensured that the case is transferred to the SP of North Goa who is a very capable and upright officer,” Kamat added, insisting that Government could not be held responsible for what had happened and that “Goa is a safe place”.

D’Souza, 28, was arrested on Sunday from the Anjuna beach, where Keeling’s body was found in a semi-nude state and heavily bruised. On Saturday, a second autopsy on the 15-year-old British girl suggested that she may have been raped and killed.

Witnesses have told police that D’Souza was with Keeling in the early hours of February 18, and may have been the last person to see her alive.

After the first autopsy said that Keeling had drowned, her mother Fiona MacKeown had accused the police of wanting to close the case. She had maintained that her daughter was raped and died of asphyxiation; the second autopsy was ordered under pressure from her family.

In their remand application, the police have said Keeling was last seen in a bar called Louis Shack at Anjuna around 3 am. The owner of the shack, Louis, claims to have seen her walk in “dead drunk”. At the time there were four men in the shack, including D’Souza.

Louis quotes another witness as saying that later, all the men in the shack left the place while Samson got into a “compromising position” with the girl.

The shack owner has reportedly also told the police that he heard about Keeling’s body being found around forenoon on Anjuna beach, and says he became suspicious when D’Souza did not show up for his bartending work until around 6 pm.

Moreover, the remand application says, a “very nervous” looking D’Souza later went to the spot on the beach where Keeling’s body was found to fetch his orange slippers.

Louis claims to have confronted D’Souza, but the bartender denied his involvement.

The Goa court on Monday upheld D’Souza’s remand observing that the offence “was serious in nature”. Two other men who have been questioned and detained in connection with the case have applied for anticipatory bail. While one of them was in the shack hours before Keeling was found dead, the other is a local guide who was known to be her friend.

The Chief Minister stressed on Monday that Goa was “always geared up for laxity of any nature”. “This is one stray case where the Government is not responsible for what happened. She was a minor who was staying with a friend… Goa is a safe place.”

While the conduct of the Anjuna policemen who handled the case initially is being investigated, the new inquiry is also expected to question forensic experts who conducted the first autopsy.

Police are also probing whether drugs or drug dealers played a part in the murder, given D’Souza’s background and the fact that another man detained in the case was also a suspected drug runner.