UK media draws flak over criticising India | World News - Hindustan Times
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UK media draws flak over criticising India

PTI | By, London
Mar 15, 2008 01:29 PM IST

British media which is giving blanket coverage to the murder of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in Goa has drawn flak for its negative reporting deriding India and the coastal state.

British media which is giving blanket coverage to the murder of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in Goa has drawn flak for its negative reporting deriding India and the coastal state, with angry readers accusing it of making too much of the case.

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Many readers point out that the Indian news media do not pass similar judgments on British society when Indian citizens die in Britain.

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Responding to a piece in The Times titled "Beware the Dangers of Goa", reader Sarah Quinlan wrote from Munich: "What a ridiculous article. How such an article has spawned from over a tourist's (supposed) murder is beyond me. I'm sure Indians (amongst other nationalities) have been murdered in Britain - Indian's aren't on TV or writing belittling articles pitying the serious underlying societal problems in Britain with tones of forewarning and danger.

"I'm also fairly sure other foreigners have been murdered in India but its funny how the media in other countries don't seem to have many articles warning their fellow countrymen of the dangers of being on holiday in India?

"This article being a fairly clear example of why no-one seems to take British people seriously anywhere in the world anymore."

Placido Carvalho, a suspect arrested on Wednesday, has reportedly confessed to the crime. Another suspect, Samson DSouza, was arrested earlier this week as the victims mother, Fiona MacKeown, continued to question the police claims. MORE

Fiona's lawyer, Vikram Varma, said police had not informed the family of the developments and had not yet even provided them with a copy of the deposition they placed before the court.

"I have much distrust of the police because of their actions so far," 'The Independent' daily quoted him as saying.

Most newspapers carried detailed accounts of the press conference in Panaji by Goa's inspector general of police Kishan Kumar in which he gave out details of the case.

Placido allegedly supplied Scarlett with a lethal cocktail of LSD, cocaine and ecstasy.

British journalists and columnists who visited Goa in the past have been writing about their experiences and linking them to Scarlett's murder.

Emma Cowing write in The Scotsman: "But Anjuna gave me the creeps a place populated by unsavoury, unhelpful characters and a prevalent, almost compulsory, Western-driven drugs culture. It is certainly no place for a 15-year-old girl alone.

"I'd been in Goa less than three hours before I was offered drugs. When I said no, the man behind the bar yes, the dealer was a barman looked surprised, almost shocked. He retreated wordlessly to a pool table, where a group of Western men were openly smoking weed.

"But then, what should I have expected from a beachfront bar in Anjuna, the place that constitutes the centre of the Goan hippy movement and is but a few metres away from the spot where, three years later, 15-year-old British tourist Scarlett Keeling's body was found brutally murdered?".

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Prasun Sonwalkar was Editor (UK & Europe), Hindustan Times. During more than three decades, he held senior positions on the Desk, besides reporting from India’s north-east and other states, including a decade covering politics from New Delhi. He has been reporting from UK and Europe since 1999.

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