By IANS,
Panaji : Curlies shack at Anjuna beach, notorious for rave parties, is back under the scanner after Scarlett Keeling’s newly surfaced email claiming that attempts were made to gang rape her at the shack a couple of days before her murder a year ago.
Edwin Nunes, owner of Curlies shack, has claimed that he is being harassed by Scarlett’s mother Fiona Mackeown and his political rivals.
Nunes, who enjoyed a brief stint as head of the Anjuna village panchayat (village council) said that the Scarlett Keeling murder controversy had severely dented his business and there was just no stopping the slew of allegations against him.
His shack Curlies located at the northern end of Anjuna beach has been the venue for rave parties, which were held even at the height of the terror scare in Goa in the festive season of December when all beach parties were banned.
“I have been co-operating with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers every time they need me. Now after a year these letters surface and all the bullshit starts in the media all over again. The mother is harassing me,” Nunes said.
The letters Nunes refers to are crucial emails the 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling had sent to her friend in Spain two nights before she was murdered.
The sensational email, which has potential to alter the course of the probe being conducted by the CBI, informs that staffers employed at Curlies shack had attempted to gang rape her. “got a taxi bak to curlies and slept ther but the boys showed me some hardcore porn movis on a phone then they all took it in turns tryin 2 rape me an i feel so shit ryt now man”, the email reads.
Nunes says that Scarlett could have been raped by any of the Indian tourists who frequent the beach by the hundreds each day during the tourist season. “She used to go to every shack on the beach. The rape happened at a shack about one km away from Curlies. The police and my political rivals are targeting me now,” said Nunes, refusing to substantiate the ‘political conspiracy’ theory.
Scarlett Keeling’s body was found in a half naked state at Anjuna beach in February last year. The police had earlier tried to dismiss the case as a suicide. But Fiona’s subsequent campaign for justice had attracted international spotlight and exposed Goa tourism’s ugly underbelly.
Two people, Placido Carvalho and Samson D’Souza, who were arrested by the Goa Police in connection with the murder, have already been released on bail.