Two years on, Goa victim rests in morgue

Even two years after her tragic death, the body of a teenager is yet to be handed over to her mother by the British authorities as paperwork by the Government of India is pending.

In an e-mail interview, the victim’s mother said the coroner in Exeter, U.K., was awaiting the completion of paperwork from the Indian departments concerned. The body was flown to the U.K. in March 2008.

On February 18, 2008, the girl’s battered, semi-nude body was found on Goa’s Anjuna beach. Two locals, Placido Carvalho and Samson D’Souza, are held accused in the case.

The Goa police, after the initial goof-up, cracked the case. It was revealed that the girl was drugged and left to die on the beach. The case was finally handed over to the CBI after consistent distrust in the State police expressed by the victim’s mother.

The lawyer for the mother slammed investigating agencies for watering down the charges, from rape and murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.