

Panaji: It's a case that has generated international attention. Did the Goa Police conspire to cover up Scarlette Keeling's murder as just another drowning death?
One man possibly has the answer — the coroner who carried out the first post mortem on Scarlette. After the controversy, like everyone involved in the case, he too had kept mum. But when CNN-IBN interviewed him on hidden camera, he revealed shocking details of a police cover-up.
The doctor (name concealed to protect identity) was part of the team that carried out the first post-mortem on Scarlette Keeling.
The Goa Police used the autopsy report to conclude that Scarlette had accidentally drowned, but the doctor says on hidden camera the report had clearly mentioned that the British teenager could have been murdered.
"The person who got the body for post-mortem is a man named Mr Lakshya Amondkar. I spoke to him. After that, he went and informed his superior, the sub-inspector at Anjuna, Nerlon Albuquerque. Between the two of them something transpired. I had informed Mr Lakshya Amondkar that the manner in which the person had died — in the water, with injuries and drugs — chances are that it was a homicide," says the doctor.
CNN-IBN has access to signed statements by a witness, Max Bulgakov, who says he identified Scarlette on the beach. Yet, the doctor says he was told by by Nerlon Albuquerque that the body had not been identified.
He also says that the police concealed details of the witnesses.
"Who came to identify the body, who was she last seen with? I asked Nerlon to take the details and provide them to me because I had to confirm or exclude sexual intercourse. I asked him to bring as many people as there were for that was material evidence for me," says the doctor.
CNN-IBN: So did you get that material evidence from them?
Doctor: No, they did not cooperate with me.
In 2003, both the doctor and Nerlon Albuquerque were suspended over a similar incident, when a murder was reportedly made to look like a suicide.
Here's what happened in that case:
"The deceased in that case had multiple injuries on the body. He (Nerlon Albuquerque) kept vehemently saying that it was a suicide. He said he had a statement before the magistrate saying it was a suicide," the doctor reveals.
The doctor's unwilling statement confirms what Scarlette's mother has been saying all along — that her daughter was murdered. But the question is, why did Nerlon Alberquerque do this? That's something that the police and Goa government will have answer.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS | |
| Why did the police take weeks to admit that the 15-year-old had been murdered? | |
| Why is the police underplaying the rape angle? | |
| Why did the first autopsy report differ substantively from the second — the first showed five bruises, while the second showed 50. | |
| Did the police and Goa Medical College doctors try and hush up the case? | |
| Why was Scarlette on the beach till five o clock in the morning and who was she with? | |
| What was the motive for the murder? | |
The question of crime against women came up in Parliament on Tuesday and Tourism minister Ambika Soni's response was — to say the least — incredible.
"Except for accident figures that have gone up, comparative figures released by the Ministry of Home Affairs reveal that crime against women has gone down," she said.
More on: special investigation, Scarlette keeling, goa murder, Kamat, ambika soni, tourism minister, Panaji, CNN-IBN Investigations










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