My daughter was depressed after testing COVID positive: Father

Team Herald 

PANJIM: In a new twist to the 19-year-old girl’s death at Calangute Beach, the victim’s father has revealed that his daughter feared going outdoors after testing positive for COVID-19 in April and had even warned the family not to convince her to return to normal life. 

The revelation follows the allegations from the victim’s family accusing the police of deliberately botching up the probe. 

Herald has exclusively accessed the statement copies of the girl’s father and a bus conductor, who claimed she was disturbed before reportedly going missing from Mapusa last week. 

The father, in his deposition to the police, said his daughter was depressed after testing positive for COVID on April 27, 2021. “…Since then she was under depression. She used to always say that she will die due to COVID-19 and we all will die,” reads an extract of the statement copy. 

The family tried its best to help her overcome the fear by convincing her to join a job at Porvorim. In his statement, the grieving father said they assumed it will change her negative thought but the teenager often blamed herself for spreading the virus among her family members. 

He said on August 11 he dropped her at the bus stop near Green Park. En route, the father said, “She told me only her dead body will return back to our house. I did try to change her mind. However, I cannot tell what was going on in her mind.” 

Since then the teenager went missing following which the family lodged a missing person’s complaint. The police have denied allegations of inaction to trace the victim. 

“A wireless message was circulated to all police stations, check posts and public places about the missing girl. Simultaneously, a search was also launched,” a policeman said. 

During the search, the police traced a bus conductor, who saw the victim at around 11.30 am on that fateful day. 

“When I was calling the passengers in the bus, I saw her at Mapusa bus stand…She was standing alone and talking to herself. There was no one around her but she was looking at people passing by her… After 10 minutes our bus left for Panjim and she was still standing there,” the conductor, who has been her schoolmate, told the police. 

He described her as being under some ‘deep depression and disturbed.’

The police have also denied foul play into the death claiming no bruises or injuries were found in the autopsy report. 

“The victim has died by suicide,” sources said countering the family’s murder claim.