The investigation into the murder of Scarlett Keeling, the British teenager found dead on a beach in Goa, is to be handed over to the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Scarlett’s mother, Fiona MacKeown, had said that she would return home to Devon from India only after the CBI, the country’s premier law enforcement agency, had been brought in to investigate her daughter’s murder.

Mrs MacKeown believes that the local police and government are corrupt and have conspired to cover up the circumstances of Scarlett’s death.

Digambar Kamat, the Chief Minister of Goa, told the state assembly: “We are willing to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation as Scarlett’s mother has been demanding. We want to clear suspicions raised about Goa’s police and politicians.”

The CBI, which is organised along similar lines to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, specialises in complex and serious crimes. Its assistance is being sought in a case that has damaged Goa’s reputation badly.

The Goan police said originally that Scarlett drowned while unconscious after a drink and drugs binge. A second postmortem, carried out at Mrs MacKeown’s insistence, showed that she was murdered.

Scarlett was found on the shore at a popular beach on February 19, bruised and stripped of her shorts and underwear. The first post-mortem reported a finding of only five bruises. The second examination found 50 – 22 of them inflicted before her death.

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