Panaji, Nov 6 (IANS) Soft sticks of charas or hashish casually dumped on vegetable chopping boards in beach shacks at Anjuna, drugs freely available near the parking lot of a popular night club run by a former aide of a Congress MP — these are some of the stunning revelations in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheet filed in the Scarlett Keeling murder case.
The chargesheet was filed in the Goa Children’s Court Oct 21.

“Apart from charas, cocaine, ecstacy tablets, ketamine and LSD are available in Anjuna and can be purchased from the parking lot opposite Paradiso Club and Nine bar and restaurant,” the statement quotes Murli Bollujo, waiter at Lui cafe, a beach shack at Anjuna where British teenager Scarlett was last seen before her murder, as having told the CBI.

Paradiso Club located in Anjuna is run by Nandan Kudchadkar, a former aide of Congress MP from South Goa Francisco Sardinha. Nine bar, located at Anjuna beach, is also notorious for drug-laced night-long rave parties which are held during the tourist season.

The chargesheet also exposes the narco-tourism industry in the coastal belt of Goa, especially Anjuna.

“In most shacks, foreigners and Indians are used to hash joints. No shack owner will stop a hash joint user. Sometimes he will also join the foreigners and have a puff,” Murli has said in his statement, which has been brought on record as evidence by the CBI.

Another waiter at Lui cafe Chandru Chauhan has clearly said that the owners of the shacks themselves used to procure drugs.

He also said that Placido Carvalho, one of the main accused in Scarlett’s rape and murder (along with Samson D’Souza), was a major cocaine user and peddler.

“Whenever he (Placido) was in the shack, he was keeping it (cocaine) below the plastic cloth on the table meant for chopping vegetables,” Chauhan has said in his statement, which is now part of CBI evidence.

The CBI chargesheet indirectly indicts the Goa police for failing to curb the drug menace in the coastal belt of the state, which is frequented by more than two million tourists annually.

In her quest for justice following her 15-year-old daughter’s death, Fiona Mackeown had alleged that a nexus between the home ministry, police and the narcotics industry was trying to scuttle the probe into her daughter’s murder.

A few days after making the charge, however, she withdrew it.

Home Minister Ravi Naik has also clarified that neither he nor his son had anything to do with the narcotics trade in the state. “There are no drugs available in Goa,” Naik had said.

Scarlett’s body was found on the Anjuna beach in North Goa in February last year. The murder exposed the seedy underbelly of tourism in the coastal belt of Goa.