Team Herald
CALANGUTE: Three tourists from Odisha were allegedly assaulted and molested by a large group of tattoo artists and touts at the Calangute promenade on Friday evening.
The tourists — Dev P, his wife Rashmi, and his brother Arun Kumar — said they had driven down from Odisha and arrived in Calangute on Friday afternoon. After checking in, they headed to the beach. While walking along the promenade, a man offered Dev a tattoo, which he declined. Despite his refusal, the man persisted, put his arm around Dev, and forcibly dragged him into a nearby tattoo shop.
"When I refused to get a tattoo, they started assaulting me," Dev recounted. “Soon we were surrounded by 15-20 people, and when we tried to leave, the number swelled to nearly 100. We came to Goa for a holiday — is this a tourist place or a terrorist place? We came to see how tourism functions here because Odisha is also developing its own tourism sector. I appeal to the tourism minister to please ensure the safety of visitors. It's only because of one local woman that we were saved,” he added.
That local woman, Ciana Fernandes, who intervened to help the tourists, said she has repeatedly complained about the growing menace of touts along the Calangute promenade. Following Friday’s incident, she called the police, who escorted the tourists to the station but allegedly urged them to ‘compromise’.
“They dropped us back at our hotel and told us to return the next morning to record our statement along with the tattoo shop owner,” Dev said. “But when we returned, they refused to check CCTV footage or register our complaint. It seems like there’s an understanding between the police and the tattoo operators,” he alleged.
Following a previous complaint by Fernandes and other tourism stakeholders regarding tourist harassment during the Christmas-New Year season, Calangute police and the Tourist Police Unit had conducted a crackdown, rounding up several touts and pimps.
“But they were back within days,” Fernandes claimed. “It seems like the authorities are involved — there’s a ‘setting’ in place. If you visit this area in the evening, you'll see hundreds of touts openly cheating tourists. When I confronted one tattoo artist, he laughed and said they ‘pay money’. Calangute MLA Michael Lobo was here just two days ago and promised to clear the area. Who is really behind this — the MLA, the chief minister, or the tourism minister?” she questioned.
In January, the Calangute panchayat raided several shops on the promenade that were allegedly operating multiple businesses without valid permits. Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira had said some shops had licenses for garment sales but were also running tattoo parlours and other businesses.
“We shut down around five such shops that were carrying out multiple activities. People should be able to walk comfortably to the beach,” Sequeira said, adding that the panchayat would continue its crackdown on illegalities and unauthorised vendors in Calangute, Baga, and Tito’s Lane