Scarlett case: Constable came to know of name after a month

The police constable who shifted Scarlett's body away from the beach came to know about her name a month later, that too through newspapers, he told the court on Wednesday.

"I came to know about the name of said lady (Scarlett) after about one month. When we saw the body first, the body was being splashed by tide water and we did not know the name of the girl, which was made known to us subsequently," Constable Vishant Chopdekar, the second witness to testify in Scarlet Eden Keeling case, told the court on Tuesday evening.

Chopdekar along with Constable Gurunath Naik were the first two witnesses who were examined by the Goa children's court, after the trial in the sensational case began, this week.

Scarlett's semi-nude battered body was found on the shores of Anjuna beach in Goa on February 18, 2008, by the police.

The constable said that when he and his colleagues arrived on the scene the body was lying on the stomach, almost nude except for the undergarment on the top portion.

"I also noticed the orange colour chappals lying at around two to three metres from the said body," Chopdekar told the Central Bureau of Investigation's public prosecutor S R Rivonkar.

 "Since the water was splashing the body, I along with Gurunath lifted the body and kept it around two metres away," he added.

Chopdekar said that they (the police) asked a local named Baptist to provide a bedsheet to cover the body. After he brought a bedsheet, the body was covered.

Defence lawyer Ryan Menezes defending accused Samson D'Souza in his cross examination tried to point a contradiction in the statements given by the constable.

He submitted that Chopdekar in his statement to the CBI had mentioned that they made inquiries with Baptist whether he made phone call to the police station informing officials about the body.

The constable had left the spot around 10 minutes later when Sub-inspector of Police Lakshi Amonkar along with constable Reshma arrived at the spot.