Doctors said - British girl was murdered in Goa

Goa :- The case of a dead British tourist, which is threatening to ruin Goa's image as an idyllic sea-and-sand vacation spot, got murkier as doctors on Saturday conducted a second autopsy on the body of Scarlette Eden Keeling and confirmed that the 15-year-old girl was indeed murdered, as claimed by her family. A panel of three doctors, however, said that though they could not confirm rape, there were strong indications of sexual violence because of injuries in the vagina. The report came as pressure mounted on Goa police to explain why full details of the death, summarily dismissed by police earlier as suicide, were not being released to the family. The report, which will add to the murkiness of Goa's tourism sector, urged the sub divisional magistrate in-charge of the case to investigate the death as a homicide. Since her barely-clad body was recovered from the state's prime Anjuna beach, her mother Fiona MacKown has been screaming that multiple bruises on the corpse clearly pointed to rape and murder. But cops ignored her, saying the first autopsy established death due to drowning. The incensed mother refused to take her daughter's body from the government morgue. After the report she was going to file a complaint against the police for cover up. The case has exposed the dark underbelly of Goa's otherwise picture-postcard touristy life and revealed a web of crime and drugs involving foreigners. According to police statistics, of the 25 people arrested on drug charges in 2006, 15 were foreigners. The number has steadily risen since 2004, when the first numbers are logged. Even as the second autopsy report was presented to a magistrate, the cops clung to the drowning story. "We are conducting the second autopsy only because we are not satisfied with the first," IGP Kishan Kumar said. The autopsy was conducted by three doctors at Goa medical college and hospital. Kumar also blamed the media for sensationalizing the case and levelling allegations of a police cover up. Worried that bad publicity was hurting the tourist cash cow, Goa tourism minister, Francisco X Pacheco on Saturday demanded strong action against Anjuna police station in charge, Nerlon Albuquerque and doctors who had conducted the first autopsy.