Date:11/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/11/stories/2008031156310100.htm
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Scarlette’s family demands CBI probe

Special Correspondent

- PHOTO: AFP

Slain British teenager Scarlett Keeling’s mother Fiona MacKeown poses with a picture of her daughter in Goa.

PANAJI: Expressing lack of faith in the Goa police over the probe into the mysterious death of British teenager Scarlette Keeling, her family on Monday demanded that the investigation be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The 16-year-old girl, who was on a holiday with her family, was found dead on north Goa’s Anjuna beach on February 18.

The police, relying on the first autopsy report, had declared the case as one of death by drowning. They revived the investigations only after a doctors’ panel recommended that the police investigate the death as “homicidal”.

Fiona MacKeown, mother of the deceased, who succeeded in compelling the State government to conduct a second autopsy, had said that she had no faith in the police probe. The family had accused the police of trying to hush up the case. Ms. MacKeown unsuccessfully waited at the office of Chief Minister Digambar Kamat on Monday evening to submit a letter seeking a CBI probe.

The family’s suspicion of foul play in the death was partially confirmed in the second autopsy conducted on Scarlett at the Goa Medical College Hospital on Saturday.

Samsung D’Souza, 29, a local bartender who was arrested on Sunday, was produced before the Judicial Magistrate Court at Mapusa in north Goa on Monday. He was remanded to 14 days’ police custody. The police have registered a rape case against him.

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