The popular Curlies shack on Goa’s famous Anjuna beach is in the news after the death of BJP leader and media personality Sonali Phogat. The 42-year-old actor-politician had visited the restaurant on Monday night and was brought dead to the St Anthony Hospital at Anjuna in North Goa district from her hotel on the morning of August 23.
Her death, earlier suspected to have been caused by a heart attack, has now been turned into a murder case with her personal assistant Sudhir Sangwan and his friend Sukhwinder behind bars. Phogat’s family has levelled allegations of rape against the duo.
Scarlett’s killing
While extremely popular with tourists, Curlies had also hit the headlines in 2008 during investigations into the death of British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling. Her mother had then claimed her daughter said she had visited Curlies just before coming to the place where she was sexually assaulted and left to die on the beach.
The girl’s partially clothed body was found on Anjuna beach. Keeling was from Bideford in Devon, United Kingdom. Initially, the police put her death down to an accident. However, after her mother pushed for a second autopsy, they found that she had been drugged and raped.
“From the evidence on record it appeared that Scarlett Keeling was taken to Curlies prior to her arrival at the Lui’s Shack where she finally died," advocate Vikram Varma, a lawyer who represented the deceased’s mother, Fiona Mackeown, told PTI on Thursday.
He said the evidence also revealed “she could have already been intoxicated with dangerous narcotics prior to arriving at Lui’s Shack".
Mackeown had alleged in a court deposition that Roy Naik, the son of former state home minister Ravi Naik, handed drugs to her minor daughter at Curlies.
Scarlett Keeling had e-mailed a Spanish friend that boys at Curlies had shown her porn on their cellphones and tried to rape her.
The Bombay High Court in 2019 sentenced Samson D’Souza, a Lui’s Shack worker, to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment in connection with the rape and murder of the British teenager.
Drug raid
In 2017, owners of two popular beach shacks in North Goa’s Anjuna village were arrested after a police raid found waiters and patrons at the establishments in possession of drugs, said officials.
Superintendent of Police (North Goa) Chandan Choudhury confirmed to the media the arrests of Edwin Nunes, owner of Curlies shack, and Rohan Shetty of Club Nyex, both cafes located in Anjuna.
Officials added that waiters at Curlies were also found with drugs.
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