Constable Gurunath Naik reconstructed the events that occurred soon after a caller informed police about an unidentified body lying on the shore.
Scarlet Eden Keeling death trial began today in Goa with first witness, a policeman, deposing before the local court even as defence lawyer pointed out contradictions in his earlier statements.
Constable Gurunath Naik, 29, attached to Anjuna police station, gave his witness before the judge B P Deshpande, reconstructing the events that occurred soon after unknown caller informed police about unidentified body lying on the shore.
Naik, the first policeman to see the corpse lying in the sea water on Anjuna beach, had earlier deposed on three occasions-two times before Goa Police and once before Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 20, 2008, March 1, 2008 and June 16, 2008 respectively.
Two local accused Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho, are booked by CBI for drugging, sexually abusing and leaving Scarlet to die at the beach waters on February 17, 2008.
Defence lawyer Ryan Menezes cited contradictions in the statement given by the witness earlier to Goa police and
CBI compared to his fresh testimony today. CBI’s counsel S R
Rivonkar, talking to media after the trial, however, termed
these contradictions as `non-fatal’ and `minor’.
"He has given three statements on different occasions. There are bound to be some differences. They are not fatal. They are minor contradictions," Rivonkar told the media.
As the trial began today, Samson D’Souza with half sleeves light blue colour shirt appeared in the court wearing motorcycle crash helmet to hide his face from the cameramen while standing outside the court.
Placido, wearing pink formal shirt and accompanied by his wife and daughter, appeared with sunglasses on till he entered the court premises, where photography is prohibited.
Through the first witness, the prosecution tried to reconstruct the case right from the time when unknown caller called up Anjuna police station, which was received by head constable A Naik.
The witness, Gurunath Naik stated that he was asked to cross check the veracity of the call by head constable and he along with two other policemen went to the scene with the control van.
Gurunath Naik said that 'unknown' girl’s body was lying with face downwards in the water when he reached the scene and it was near Shore Bar, a bar on Anjuna shore.
While in the first deposition before the police, the constable had said that 'someone had told him that the body was already shifted from the water to the shore,' he contradicted it during a fresh statement this afternoon.
Defence lawyer also pointed out that the constable on earlier occasion had never revealed that 'when he saw the body, it was scantily clad.
The statement about the position of the body was also contradicted as during his earlier statement, the constable
had said that the body was lying near Lui Café and in the
fresh statement, the position was declared as near shore bar.
Even though the court was supposed to take the statement of Vishant Chopdekar, the public prosecutor requested to have his deposition for the next hearing.
The Judge ruled that for the next hearing, scheduled for April 7, police driver Vishant Chopdekar would testify before the court along with Police Sub-Inspector Lakshi Amonkar, who was the first investigating officer of the case.
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