India: Two Irish nationals are to be interviewed by police investigating the death of a British woman in northern India last week, writes Rahul Bedi in New Delhi.
Police said after contacting their embassy in New Delhi, the two men would return to the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, 650 km north of the capital, to assist them with their inquiry into the murder of 25 year-old Ms Anna Bartlett.
Ms Bartlett was released four months ago from an Arab jail for drug smuggling.
"They [the two Irishmen\] panicked after finding their names and description in several newspapers and contacted us through their embassy," Manali's Superintendent of Police A. P. Singh said. They should be in Manali by tomorrow morning for interrogation, he added.
Police said the two Irishmen were with Ms Bartlett the evening before her battered body was found on October 2nd in a drain besides the Beas River that runs through the centre of Manali, a haven for backpackers and drug users.
Supt Singh said preliminary inquiries had revealed that Ms Bartlett was last seen alive in a local bar with the Irishmen before all three left late in the evening.
An eyewitness, a local drug pusher, is being detained by police for questioning in connection with the murder investigation.
Police said Ms Bartlett had "severe lacerations" to her face and appeared to have been badly beaten before she died.
Indian police are also believed to be looking for a local small time drug dealer, a Nepalese national, who was known to Ms Bartlett.
Supt Singh said the autopsy report on Ms Bartlett revealed traces of Ketamine, a veterinary medicine normally administered to horses but also consumed by drug users, in her blood.
Ms Bartlett arrived in Manali on September 28th, a fortnight after landing in India.
She booked into the Negi Guesthouse and on September 30th met up with the two Irishmen at a local bar before departing late in the evening. Her body was recovered a day later.
Once a high-achieving A-level student Ms Bartlett, of Southend in Essex, was sentenced to 25 years in jail for smuggling cocaine into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) three years ago.
She flew from Germany after swallowing around 50, three-inch long pouches packed with drugs to the UAE where she was arrested on arrival.
Her sentence was commuted to 10 years on appeal and in June she was pardoned and returned to her parents who hoped she would straighten herself out, join the ecology course at Brighton University for which she had been accepted and give up drugs.
Repentant after her release, Ms Bartlett said she was "deeply ashamed" by her conduct and that at that time she had been just a smuggler caring only about cash not people.
But she remained restless and last month, after at least one suicide attempt, headed for India - where five years ago she met the Yorkshireman she blamed for introducing her to drugs.