As Alice Sebold would say about rape, “You save yourself or you remain unsaved” and the later did happen. In two days, at the end of the tourist season, Goa recorded first a gang rape on a beach and then a molestation of a minor foreign national in another part down South. In both cases, the perpetrator of the crime wasn’t a ‘Goan’ but the enabler definitely was Goa. In two days, Goa’s USP – its golden sands, its virgin beaches – have turned predators and we the people look haplessly. Many of us may not even care because ‘Come on! Both the victim and the accused are outsiders. The police will arrest them and justice will be served. Right?’ Wrong.
In two days, Goa showed that its beaches, which were not only a tourist draw but also its pride, are not safe anymore. Whether you walk alone as a woman or walk as a young couple (married or unmarried, doesn’t matter); the sly looks, the point-blank stares, the drunken slurs that you face are blunt warnings that the beach is not where you get your peace and tranquility anymore. It is an invitation to be ravished, ravaged by absolute strangers as Goa’s Police, Goa’s Panchayats, Goa’s Political Leaders and even the local village hands may not hear your voice. This isn’t the Goa that attracted skimpily clad beauties in the 1960s as the local Goan lads provided a strong protective cordon around them. This is the Goa where the Tourism Minister peddles ‘quality tourism’ in a foreign country that had its national chased down and murdered in broad daylight by villagers in North Goa. And this is the same Goa where a Home Minister has been missing in action since the past 100 days and two rapes are recorded in a span of 48 hours. The question that Goa needs to ask is how safe are visiting women in Goa? And will it take the Goa Government a few more rapes and molestations of Goan girls and women to wake up? Does even Law have double standards and dual priorities?
Just last year this time, Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar had promised “safety measures at hotels, tourist spots are now visible. Deployment of 100-odd India Reserve Battalion force and over 600 lifeguards along the coast, special women taxi service and CCTV cameras are adding more impetus to safety measures’. If the safety of tourists is in place then where do these rogue tourists and unscrupulous migrants get the strength and courage to waylay just any woman and commit the most heinous crimes? No, Mr Minister, it is not that simple. The beaches of Goa cannot be completely covered by your CCTV ‘cos we know there are not enough people to monitor them and your IRBs can protect every woman because you cannot post a constable per tourist. A CCTV can record a rape, it cannot avoid it from happening. Your IRB battalions if posted round the clock and just doing their patrols would be deterrent enough. Two rapes have happened in two days and no one in this headless Goa Government can negate the fact that this Government failed its most primary responsibility of protecting the tourists who keep our economy afloat.
But the real fear for Goa isn’t about getting bad publicity, news reports die after a few days of an incident. The real fear is about letting our tourists down. The real fear is that Goa shall soon become a happy hunting ground for perverts, predators and rapists. What former Tourism Minister Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco had said nine years ago, “Goa may soon, if police inaction or ineffectiveness continues, gain (a) reputation as the rape capital of India”; may just come true. Goa’s Cabinet Advisory Committee may develop projects worth crores and its Tourism Minister may be soliciting quality tourists but the blunt truth is that Goa isn’t safe anymore as it doesn’t have a Home Minister to ensure safety, security, law and order. If Goans don’t wake and shake up matters, the fire outside may soon singe their own.
