PANAJI: The much-hyped deaths of three youths outside the Sunburn Klassique EDM venue, at Vagator, last December, ended as a whimper as viscera reports from the Central Science Forensic Laboratory (CSFL), Hyderabad, state that there is “no presence of narcotic substance”.
“We have received the viscera reports from the CSFL and the chemical examination report will be sent to the Goa Medical College (GMC) to seek opinion on the causes of deaths,” a Goa police officer told TOI.
GMC doctors had reserved the cause of death as they were awaiting the CSFL’s reports. In January, Goa police had written to the CSFL to expedite the chemical analysis of the viscera.
A doctor at GMC said that delay in examination of viscera can also lead to non-tracing of narcotic substance. An official had then said that the deaths have one thing in common — cerebral and pulmonary oedema and, at the time, police had said that only the chemical analysis reports will state with accuracy what caused the oedema.
A forensic doctor, associated with GMC for over three decades, said, “If an overdose is caused due to any designer drug, there is zero possibility that autopsy would be able to reveal the actual cause of death.”
The three were Sai Prasad, 32, from Hyderabad, an IT engineer, Venkat, 31, a Visakhapatnam-based businessman, and Phanideep Khota, an automobile engineer from Hyderabad, who worked as a sales executive in Bengaluru. Prasad and Venkat were in Goa to attend the music festival.
They were among 150 people standing in queue on December 27, the first day of the three-day festival, waiting to enter the venue. The gates hadn’t opened when the incident took place.
Police had said that one of the two first began to shiver, and the other immediately held him to prevent him from falling. Two others also came forward to help, and they took them to the police outpost. While the first one was being given first aid, the other one started shivering. An ambulance was called, and they were shifted to the district hospital at Mapusa, where doctors declared them brought dead.
On December 29, Khota lost consciousness outside the festival venue at 9.30pm and was rushed to the first-aid centre at the site.
He was later shifted to a private hospital at Vagator where he was declared dead. Khota had come to Goa along with five other friends on December 28 to celebrate New Year. The group was staying at Calangute.