Fiona Mackeown, the mother of murdered 15-year-old British girl Scarlett
Keeling accuses Ravi Naik, Home (interior) Minister of India's coastal state
of Goa, of covering up the murder and threatening her to leave the
country.

TORVORIM (MARCH 18, 2008) (ANI) - Fiona MacKeown, the mother of murdered 15-year-old British girl
Scarlett Keeling, on Tuesday (March 18) accused Ravi Naik, Home (interior)
Minister of India's western coastal Goa state, of covering up the murder and
intimidating her to leave the country.

Fiona, who has alleged a local drug mafia-politician-police nexus, said she
suspected some foul play in the investigations.

"Your consistent threats implicating me have been received by me
verbally through your minions in the last three weeks. I do acknowledge that.
I was told not to pursue Scarlett's case as being anything but death due to
drowning or else you would implicate me with much empower of the state behind
you. I decided to stand up for the truth and wrote a letter to honorable Prime
Minister of India expressing my complete lack of faith in your Director
General of Police. You have done your best to cover up the murder of Scarlett
and browbeat me to leave the country quickly and quietly," Fiona said
reading out from a letter written to Naik.

Fiona's letter comes a day after Naik said that she left her 15-year-old
child unattended.

Fiona, who was questioned by police on Friday (March 14), had left her
daughter in the care of friends in Goa while she went traveling in southern
India.
      
Fiona earlier wrote to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his
intervention, as she felt the case had weakened with the police sitting on
vital medical tests for weeks to confirm the presence of drugs in Keeling's
body.

The media and lawyers have criticised the police for failing in the past to
properly investigate murder cases.

The autopsy revealed bruises all over Keeling's body, that her mouth was
stuffed with sand and she did not have enough saltwater in her lungs to
indicate drowning.

Police have arrested three persons with one of them being suspected of
raping the 15-year-old British girl who was later found dead on a beach in
Goa.

Keeling's case is the latest to highlight the vulnerability of tourists in
India becoming hapless victims of their own drug-related lifestyle that is
manipulated by local criminals.

Tourism officials met in Goa this year to discuss attacks on tourists after
at least seven foreign women and girls said they had been raped or
molested.