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NEW DELHI, March 10: Indian police deliberately covered up the murder of a 15-year-old British teenage girl who was found dead in Goa last month, the state’s tourism minister said on Monday.
Indian police originally insisted that Scarlett Keeling had drowned after taking drugs, but changed their story after Keeling’s mother kicked up a fuss and a second autopsy suggested she had been raped and murdered.
On Sunday, police arrested a man suspected of raping Keeling.
“This is a clear case of murder and it has gone out of proportion because the police tried to cover it up,” Francisco X. Pacheco, Goa’s tourism minister said.
“The guilty police officers should be immediately suspended,” Pacheco said by telephone after holding a news conference in Goa.
“I have spoken to senior government officials and told them that inaction in such cases will give Goa a bad name and they have assured me strong action,” he said.
Indian media said there may have been an attempt to play down the death to protect the state’s tourism industry — but this appears to have backfired.
Senior police officers said they were investigating the allegations of a cover-up and the actions of junior officers.
“There are certain things under my scrutiny and I have taken cognisance of all these issues, specially these officers,” Kishan Kumar, a senior police officer overseeing the probe said. “We have sufficient evidence against the person we have arrested regarding rape and the mystery of murder will be solved soon.” The arrested man, Samson D’Souza, 29, reported to be a barman in a beach shack, was brought to court on Monday. He has been sent to police custody for two weeks.
Keeling’s mother Fiona MacKeown always insisted her daughter had been raped and killed, and a second autopsy backed up her argument.
It revealed bruises all over Keeling’s body, that her mouth was stuffed with sand and that she did not have enough saltwater in her lungs to indicate drowning.
Keeling’s case is the latest to highlight the safety of tourists in India. Tourism officials met this year to discuss attacks on tourists after at least seven foreign women and girls said they had been raped or molested.
Tourism minister Pacheco said he was worried about the safety of foreign tourists in India.
“This case will definitely hurt tourism, because it has gone out of proportion and I have got so many calls from people outside India,” he said.
MOTHER CALLS FOR FULL PROBE: The mother of Scarlett Keeling renewed on Monday calls for a proper inquiry to catch her daughter’s killers, saying she had no faith in local police.
Fiona MacKeown spoke out a day after Goa police charged an Indian bartender with raping 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling three weeks after she was found dead on a beach.
“The police here have a reputation for just arresting someone so it looks like they’ve done something,” the mother said.
“They’re charging him with statutory rape so the headlines can read ‘We’ve got the guy who raped Scarlett Keeling.’ It’s been a farce from the beginning.” MacKeown said she was not convinced police had got the right man in 29-year-old Samsung D’Souza, one of three who was being interrogated in connection with the murder.
D’Souza worked at Lui cafe on popular Anjuna beach, where Keeling was last seen alive in the early hours of Feb 18, after partying with a Spanish girlfriend.
Police have denied the allegations by Keeling’s mother that authorities had initially tried to hush-up the murder.
But MacKeown, who had left her daughter in Goa to go off on a trip to neighbouring Karnataka state, is now calling for India’s federal Central Bureau of Investigation — the leading crime agency — to take over the case.
She made the plea in a letter to Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat that was shown to newsmen on Monday.
“I have no faith left in the current leadership of the Goa police and request for an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation, both into the circumstances of the crime and the men in uniform,” she wrote.
MacKeown and her boyfriend brought her oldest daughter and six younger siblings from their home in Devon in southwest England to Goa for a six-month stay in November.—Reuters/AFP
