Nearly two years after a 22-year-old Finnish national Felix Dahl, who was holidaying in Goa, was found dead in a beach village in mysterious circumstances, police in South Goa Canacona village, finally registered a First Information Report in connection with the case under 302 of the Indian Penal Code, suggesting that the tourist could have been murdered.
The FIR was filed after Dahl’s mother Minna Pirhonen, approached the Judicial Magistrate First Class in Canacona, seeking that the police, who had earlier said that the dead was due to a self-accident injury, alleging that Dahl was murdered.
According to the FIR registered on Friday at the Canacona police station, Dahl was allegedly “murdered by unknown persons in the intervening night of January 27-28, 2015 at Patnem beach in Canacona”, which is located around 90 kms from Panaji.
According to the petition filed before the court Dahl, a student had travelled to Goa on a vacation, had entered into an squabble with a local and had been taken by the Canacona police to a neighbouring village called Agonda. Dahl’s remains were found the next day at Patnem village, whose adjoining beach, is a popular haunt for foreign tourists.
While the initial autopsy conducted by local forensic specialists said that the death could have occurred due to a self-sustained injury, another forensic examination conducted by a Finnish expert suggest that Dahl could have been murdered.
Speaking to The Pioneer, london based kin of Dahl, Sanna Cutter said, “What we have learnt from the other cases, especially the Scarlett case, is that this is just the first step on a long fight to get justice for Felix”.
The issue of safety of foreign tourists has been a matter of concerns and been highlighted ever since the sexual assault and death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling at Goa’s popular Anjuna beach, located 20 kms north of Panaji in 2008.
The State has witnessed several high profile crimes related to assaults and deaths of foreign nationals since the Keeling episode, raising the question of whether Goa's beaches, though popular, were safe for foreign tourists, especially women.