Indian Vikat Bhagat charged with rape and murder of Irish backpacker Danielle McLaughlin who was last seen surrounded by men on Goa dancefloor
She was seen on CCTV with Bhagat, 23, in the hours before her death
AN Indian man has been charged with the rape and murder of Irish backpacker Danielle McLaughlin.
Police in Goa said 23-year-old Vikat Bhagat will face a trial next month over her murder.
Danielle, 28, was strangled and her face was slashed with a broken beer bottle after she had spent the day celebrating a holi festival in the holiday resort.
She was seen on CCTV with Bhagat, 23, who she knew from previous visits to the country in the hours before her death.
Bhagat was arrested by police soon after her body was found on field by a local farmer on March 14.
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Sammy Taveres, Deputy Superintendent of Police said: "We have filed a charge sheet against Vikat Bhagat in the case of rape and murder of Irish tourist Danielle Mclaughlin."
Bhagat reportedly confessed the murder to police initially but last month he wrote a 29-page open letter denying he was responsible.
He claimed he was in love with Danielle, from Donegal, and it was actually three of his friends who had killed her in front of him.
But he alleges police then beat him and forced to incriminate himself by putting finger prints on beer bottles.
His sister Geeta Bhagat, a 25-year-old hospital nurse, said: "My brother is being framed.
"He has told me in the letter that he informed the cops of the involvement of three other men, but the police did not listen to him.
"Instead they gave him electric shock in his calf muscles and asked him to touch the broken beer bottles for finger prints."
According to Bhagat, he and Danielle were drunk and smoking cannabis with others in a restaurant on the night of her murder.
He claimed they were going to join his friends but stopped at a regular spot to smoke, where Danielle was later found murdered.
In his letter, he allegedly wrote: "While sipping beer I received a call from [a friend] that they are in Leopard Valley and asked us to join them, to which I replied we will do in some time and informed them of our location.
"I saw two bikes coming towards us switching off the headlights.
"They came to me, when I questioned why they were here, [a friend] asked me to tell Danielle to have sex with them."
Bhagat wrote that Danielle then slapped one of the men, who stripped and raped her before beating her with beer bottles.
Local lawyer Vikram Varma, who had been assisting Danielle's family also suspected more than one person had been involved in the crime.
Police interviewed the three men named by Bhagat but ruled them out of the investigation.
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