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Scarlette’s death is not an isolated case

DNA has learnt the police are also investigating a murder committed in August 2007 on the same lines of a 15-year-old Canadian girl.

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ANJUNA(Goa): Scarlette Keeling’s is not an isolated case as Goa Police would have us believe. DNA has learnt the police are also investigating a murder committed in August 2007 on the same lines of a 15-year-old Canadian girl.

“The 15-year-old had come visiting with some friends in August last year,” a senior police officer told DNA. The girl, like Scarlette, had been left unattended by her parents and was quickly identified by local drug-peddlers who lured her with chemical drugs and went to her hotel room. The next day, she was found murdered in her room with tell-tale signs of sexual assault all over her body. The police continue to investigate the case without much headway.

“The police are not interested in investigating anything involving foreigners,” 42-year-old Australian Joseph Bell, a regular visitor to Goa, says. “They assume all visiting foreigners die of drug overdoses,” he adds.

“The death of a foreigner in Goa is very common and overdoses are nothing new here, especially in the more hippy areas such as Anjuna. But long-term residents say they appear to be getting more frequent as ever-larger numbers of Western tourists visit the areas in search of more potent trips.

Some of them are murdered and the police ask all the wrong questions. In the case of Scarlette too, the police were all too ready to offer a natural cause of death,” says 35-year-old Belgian Cecilia, another regular.

On March 1, British citizen Michael Harvey was found dead in his room near Ashwem Beach, just north of Anjuna Beach. The police did not suspect foul play in that case either, and claimed the death was a case of drug overdose.

“A neighbour who saw Harvey the night before he died described him as a ‘typical Goa junkie’,” said a police officer familiar with the case.

Taking care of such junkies is a catch-22 scenario for Goa Police. While the country would like to see a tourist police force helping foreign guests, Goa Police fear an onslaught of corruption allegations the minute police presence on beaches and at tourist spots is beefed up.

“The beaches of Goa are full of scare stories where foreigners are followed from the place of a drug peddler by gangs, claiming to be from the narcotics bureau, and robbed of drugs and cash. “The trouble is one doesn’t know who’s police and who is not,” 29-year-old Russian Sandra says.
t_mayank@dnaindia.net
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