Hindustan Times: Panaji: Monday,
April 17, 2017.
The sun, sand
and rocking nightlife of the famed beaches of Goa hide a dark underbelly: The
iconic holiday destination has claimed the lives of roughly 20 foreigners every
year in the last decade or so.
The rape and
murder of 28-year-old Irish woman Danielle McLaughlin in Canacona in March this
year was only the latest in a long list of crimes against foreigners in the
coastal state.
According to
an RTI reply accessed by a local activist in support of relatives of several of
the deceased, a shocking 245 foreigners have died in Goa in the last 12 years.
The state
police cracked the Danielle case by swiftly arresting the accused, a tour guide
she was last seen with, but her family and friends allege more than one person
was involved in the crime and that she was gangraped before being killed.
The arrest of
tour guide Vikas Bhagat may have given a partial closure to Danielle’s family,
but several relatives of other foreigners who died under suspicious
circumstances say their cases are stuck in the vortex of the Indian
criminal-justice system.
The RTI reply
that details the cause, time and place of death at four coastal police stations
where foreigners mostly frequent, has classified a majority of these deaths as
“natural”. However, the relatives have alleged foul play in most of these cases
and expressed dissatisfaction with the line of investigation.
What should
worry the state that receives more than 5 lakh tourists every year is that more
and more foreigners are raising their voice over safety and security issues. In
at least half a dozen cases where the relatives managed to get the courts to
order re-investigation, the “natural” deaths turned out to be pre-meditated
murders.
Take the
death of 22-year-old Finnish youth Felix Dahl. The Canacona police primary
investigation said he had died due to an accidental fall, but a second autopsy
done by the family in Finland revealed fatal injuries to his skull from a high
impact weapon causing death.
The case was
put up before the Canacona magistrate who ordered an FIR to be registered, two
years after his death. Till date no one has been arrested or detained and the
probe is only at the stage of questioning guides and bar owners in the area.
“Felix’s body
was found on gravel around 200 metres away from a restaurant where he was last
spotted. All the facts put up by the police were imaginary,” says his mother
Minna Pirohnen, who challenged the police account in court and sought a fresh
murder probe.
The mother
says she suspected murder after she found out that Felix was last spotted with
a man who was a close friend of Vikas Bhagat, the accused in the Danielle rape
and murder case. “I do feel the police are always trying to cover these cases
out of fear that it will damage the reputation of Goa,” says Pirohnen.
In the
infamous Scarlett Keeling case of 2008, the police had initially dubbed it as
death due to drowning and drug overdose. The case was transferred to the CBI
and rape and murder charges were added only after the issue snowballed into a
global outrage.
A similar
case is that of Denyse Sweeney, a charity worker who was found unconscious at a
night club in Vagator and later died during treatment on April 16, 2010. The
medical report stated the likely cause as drug overdose. After intense pressure
from the British family, the Anjuna police re-opened the case in 2012 and
transferred it to CBI for a murder probe.
Recently, a
meeting was held in Cheltenham, Glouchestershire, by the relatives of Stephen
Benett who died in Goa in 2006 to discuss the dangers foreigners face there. It
was attended by the sister and mother of Felix Dahl. Fiona Mackeown, mother of
Scarlett Keeling, Amanda Benett whose brother Stephen died in 2006 and Maureen
Sweeney, sister of Denyse Sweeney, also attended this meet.
“We all share
the same misery. Our kin had gone to Goa to experience the beauty of the
beaches and the much talked about serenity of the place, only to never come
back. By coming together we feel that we will be able to make an impact on the
authorities,” says Felix’s sister Sanna Cutter who also attended this meet.
She points
out that the agonizing part in all the cases is the manner in which the police
handled the probe. “Almost every death that happens around the beaches is
rubbed off by the police as an accidental death caused either due to drowning
or some other reason. They never try and probe into the matter. In the case of
my brother a similar thing happened.”
Determined to
get justice, these family members have taken their cause to social media – they
are networking through Facebook pages like ‘Justice for Felix Dahl’ and
‘Justice for Danielle McLaughlin’. These pages give details of each incident,
progress in the case and even crowd-funding the expenses for the legal battle.
Talks are also on to file a joint petition seeking transfer of these cases to
CBI.
The detailed
classification of the 245 deaths in the last 12 years in the four districts of
Anjuna, Pernem, Mapusa and Canacona were collected by the family members
through RTIs and personal efforts. The families claim that in most cases the
deaths have been listed as accidental or caused due to drowning, a possibility
that they doubt. They also point to 39 cases registered in several police
stations where the cause of death is classified as “unknown”.
The deaths of
Martin Neighbour in 2008 and James Durkin in 2015 are among the cases awaiting
justice.
In the case
of Martin Neighbour whose body was found in Anjuna beach area and was
classified as death due to drowning, his sister Sara Neighbour pointed out that
he had bruises on his body and looked beaten up. The body of Durkin was found
decomposed in Canacona beach area after he went missing for 30 days. The families
of both the deceased have time and again questioned the death and asked for a
fresh investigation.
A close
family friend of Durkin while speaking to HT said, “The police did a shoddy
investigation and tried to rule out all possibilities of a murder. It hardly
helps if the case is re-opened after years as all the evidences have been
erased by that time.”
But as
questions are raised time and again about the shoddy investigations senior
police officials say they proceed only as per the law. “We cannot call every
death that happens here as murder without getting a post mortem done. First, a
case needs to be registered as unnatural death, only if the police feels that
all the circumstantial evidences indicate a murder, like we did in the case of
Danielle McLaughlin in Canacona, that an FIR is registered under section 156
(3),” says Sammy Tavares, deputy superintendent of police (Canacona).
“We always
request foreigners to register with Foreigners Regional Registration Office
(FRRO), which most of them never do. Also, we find most of them spending time
with unauthorised guides who often have a criminal history, like Vikas Bhagat
whom McLaughlin was found spending time on both of her visits to Goa. All of
this does invite trouble but we still try to ensure their safety,” adds
Tavares.
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