Inspector General of Police Kishan Kumar refused to speculate on whether a drug and alcohol overdose could have caused the teenager’s death saying he preferred to leave those conclusions to the doctors. He said the police were in the final stages of the investigation and the forensic report “strengthened” their case against the two accused. “We will be discussing the results of the chemical analysis with the experts.”

The analysis was done at the Mumbai Forensic Science Laboratory.

Two types of drugs have shown up in the tests, cocaine and morphine. This reinforced the police case that the British teenager had died as a result of a “chain of events”, Kumar told a media conference.

“She was drugged, sexually assaulted and dumped in the water,” he said, adding that the Goa police who are is fine-tuning their investigation, would persist with the murder angle.

Eyewitnesses had told the police that Scarlett, 15, had arrived at Lui’s bar in Anjuna at around 3 am on February 18 in an intoxicated state. Some said they saw her going into the kitchen where one of the accused, Placido Carvalho, a drug dealer was snorting cocaine. Some accounts said she had also been given an Ecstasy tablet. Ecstasy, a synthetic drug is the street name for MDMA (methylenedioxymethampheta-mine).

Two persons charged
So far two persons, Carvalho and Samson D’Souza accused of sexually assaulting the girl, are being charged with murder in the case. On Wednesday the man Keeling was living with, Julio Lobo was granted anticipatory bail by the courts. The police wanted to charge Lobo with negligence under the Goa Children’s Act. It has not brought any charges of negligence against Keeling’s mother Fiona MacKeown who left her minor daughter in Goa alone in Lobo’s care.

Given the strident media coverage in this case and MacKeown’s allegations against the state government and the police chief,  Director General of Police B S Brar said Goa was being “falsely portrayed”.

“This is the safest place in the world with the best law and order situation in the country. It is the safest place for women and children.” Mr Brar said other destinations had far higher crime rates than Goa.

He also rubbished a television news channel’s sting operation on Wednesday which alleged Home Minister Ravi Naik’s son had links to drug mafias.

“The allegations are a false, malicious and crude attempt at character assassination.” Neither Mr Ravi Naik nor his son has anything to do with narcotics. The minister had in fact been firm about stamping out drugs soon after he took over the ministry last year, he said.