PANAJI
A day after a three-member medical review committee re-confirmed that 19-year-old Siddhi Naik died due to drowning, while also confirming three superficial bruises on her body, the deceased’s father Sandeep has once again insisted her daughter had been murdered.
Sandeep Naik, who met the Director-General of Police on Wednesday, later addressed a press conference with social activist Tara Kerkar in Panaji, where he said that the police should now find who murdered his daughter.
“I know my daughter has been murdered. The police should probe properly. How did my daughter land up on the beach? Who dumped her there? When was the body dumped? I want justice,” Naik told reporters.
Siddhi, a resident of Nachinola village in North Goa, was missing since the morning of August 12 after which a missing complaint was filed by her father at a local police station. A post-mortem had ruled out any sexual assault and murder, while identifying the cause of death as drowning.
But days after the body was found, her father had accused the Goa police of a shoddy investigation and alleged that they had initially tried to force him to not register a missing complaint, which eventually delayed action. Earlier this month, the father also submitted a complaint to the Calangute police station in which he sought a murder probe into his daughter’s death.
Following pressure from her father and amid opposition outcry, a medical board was also formed to re-assess the cause of the death. The deceased’s father now claims that the police had been trying to bury the case.
“They want to bury the case because the body has already been cremated and a lot of time has passed. But I will not let that happen,” Naik said.
