Random Thoughts

No girls should feel safe! Stick to the main roads, avoid dirt tracks, and when in your house, make sure that all windows and doors are locked. (The police) have no idea of the amount of rapes (of foreign tourists) in Goa... take care! Spread the word." - This is from a pamphlet titled "Rape Alert", displayed by Western tourists at Goa beachside restaurants.
If you're one of the 30,000 odd foreign tourists visiting Goa at this time of the year, you might run into this notice pinned on the thatched walls of the "Goodluck" beach-shack restaurant on the sands of Baga beach.
Last fortnight, the Goa police took the problem of rising beach crime seriously, as never before.
But this came after two young Swedish women were gang raped by seven to eight men at Anjuna, the Mecca of backpack and hippy tourists in South Asia. They were returning home after a late-night beach-party. Their bike was stopped by assailants armed with sticks and knives. A male companion was forced at knife-point to witness the gang-rape. All were robbed of money and possession. But this case, which sent the local police into a tizzy, is only the shocking tip of a long-ignored iceberg. Crime is turning into the new growth-industry along parts of the North Goa beach belt. It is coming in alongside prosperity brought in by the booming tourism sector there over the past decade.
Everyone seems to think the Western tourist's affluence is out for grabs. Literally. Constable Digambar Naik was weeks ago suspended over the theft of 500 pound sterling from the baggage of two Britons at Goa's airport. Last month, Panaji police nabbed two Gujaratis for stealing the belongings of foreigners travelling to Goa by bus.
Many crimes go unreported. But recorded crimes indicate the range: An Andhra-Goa gang busted while looting foreign tourists in the Calangute-Anjuna belt last April. A Briton was nabbed trying to collect Rs 3.5 million worth of cocaine posted from Colombia. Extortion cases by criminals and, if one believes the tourists, even by men in uniform.
Some support for this view comes from strange quarters: the local leader of Bal Thackeray's Shiv Sena. Local Sena village leader Camilo D'Souza, some time back, wrote to chief minister Pratapsing Rane warning him about theft, housebreaking and extortion taking root in the capital of hippy-Goa. "Unidentified persons posing as policemen have been collecting huge amounts from tourists as 'baksheesh'," D'Souza added.
Goa Inspector-General of Police PRS Brar points to the speedy police action on arresting suspects in the Swede gangrape case. He dismisses the view other crime often directed again, foreign tourists is growing fast. "If you wear a diamond ring and leave it on the dressing table, which police can stop it from being stolen," asks Brar.
But real life can be more bizarre. One year back, a group of local boys, allegedly playing nude on the Sinquerim beach, tried to molest a foreigner while she was fishing. Local youngsters have gone on rampages against Kashmiri vendors, resettled in the area, using any pretext to grab their goods, this correspondent was told by reliable quarters.
Statistics recently blew the lid to indicate that something was going drastically wrong. Figures revealed that in the 1995-96 tourist season, over two dozen foreign tourists had died in Goa, in a spell of under six months. Nearly 13 had died of overdoses of narcotics or liquor.
"Leave aside the tourists, even fisherfolk in Calangute, who once slept soundly on the shore, are afraid of moving about in their own land," says village parish priest Fr. Jose Dias. "This is frustration. There's no money any longer in tourism (in Goa, compared to the past few years)", reasons Jude Miranda, whose family runs a pay-phone booth and stores at Baga, frequented by foreign tourists. Clearly, the downswing some see overtaking Goa's decade-old charter tourism sector is breeding desperation. Besides, too many businesses have opened up, bringing in more to fight over the pie.
In one case, for instance, tourist-taxi operators beat up a Kashmiri vendor because they felt he was undercutting them. Some bus tour-operators have recently complained that their passengers are being coerced into eating at certain restaurants. In the Calangute police station, this correspondent met a European woman tourist complaining that the lodge owner was compelling her to stay on longer than she wished, threatening to hold back her possessions otherwise.
There are other hints to show that it's no longer just business as usual: On January 7, a 33-year-old Briton was raped at Anjuna by two unidentified persons, including her taxi driver. The rapists stole her purse too. Each of the half-dozen North Goa Coastal villages which attract the bulk of the foreign visitors are distinct. Sinquerim, dominated by up-market tourists, doesn't often report such crime. Tight security ensures that even journalists entering a luxury hotel on a two-wheeler might be halted to face questions.
At the other end - both geographically and otherwise - is Anjuna-Vagator. Here, the three-decades old hippy-tourist monopoly is slowly but surely giving way to a commercialised circuit, throwing up a potent mix. Big business and the state government want to replace the low-budget tourists around with big-spenders. But villagers say they gain most from those who depend on the simple life of their rustic economy.
Baga and Calangute, former fishing villages sandwiched in the midst of this belt, face crime directed against tourists and related problems. Calangute villagers complain of local protection rackets, links between politicians and dubious organisations whose activities verge on the semi-legal, and land-grabs by builders in an area where tourism has sparked an uncontrolled building boom.
Some argue though that the crime along the beach belt is not all that new. Police officials dismissively say some foreign tourists report thefts of belongings to claim insurance back home. But Goa Speaker Tomazinho Cardozo calls for firm governmental action "otherwise the tourists will feel insecure". He recalls how in his Coastal constituency at Ximer-Candolim, some young boys raped a tourist, some years ago, but they were not brought to book. IG-P Brar retorts that it's hard to follow up such crime too. For instance, one Danish girl was raped. Police offered to pay for her passage stay in Goa, but she opted not to get involved in India's time-consuming legal system. He warns the same could happen in the latest Swedish case.
But Rosy Fernandes, who rents accommodation to foreign tourists, has another story to tell. Two Frenchmen there were robbed twice. In one case, the elderly womenfolk were too afraid to intervene. Another time, the tourists woke up in the morning to find a part of their roof missing, along with cameras, radios and even their shoes.
'Foreign tourists have been harassed a lot. Both by thieves and by the police," says another Anjuna villager, seeking anonymity for obvious reasons. Local medical practitioner Dr.Jawaharlal Henriques concurs: "In other areas, the Police presence is reassuring. In Anjuna, it seems to be just the opposite."
"I want to spend my holiday in peace, not going to courts," says Danish TV-2 journalist Frants Pandal, explaining why few complaints are made to the police. He says the police are not widely trusted, and foreign tourists believe some have resorted to "planting" of narcotics to extort sums of $500. Pandal's friend, Danish musician Frank E. got almost killed. He woke up a week back to find six to seven persons holding a knife to his throat at Badem-Anjuna. Just then, some of his friends turned up, making the robbers flee, says Pandal, a Goa regular since 1969 who is having second thoughts on coming back.
Goa's Tourist Police are ill-equipped. "They are only there to shoo away the hawkers," complains Roland Martins. His citizens' group, the JGF, critical of Goa's tourism policy for a decade, sees "strong hints" of political patronage to the crime.
Ms. Zuma Suzama of Croatia and Steinhaus Ralf of Frankfurt says tourists "talk a lot" about crime on the beach. But other foreign tourists don't think much of the problem. "Most people we met are satisfied. They are here because they like Goa," said a woman, declining to mention her name, who is part of a former Christian Ashram that now runs a library for tourists in Anjuna.
Teddy Nunes feels otherwise. "The growing crime is a recent trend. It will definitely affect tourism," says this educationist whose family runs a mini-supermarket at the lively former hippy-haunt of Anjuna. Behind him are posters seeking information about a missing Swiss tourist, and announcing the departure of an overland bus leaving Goa for Europe.
John Lobo, who runs a popular "shack", concurs. He feels that Goa's image as a licentious place has been so widely propagated that foreign women tourists walking alone face a serious threat of being molested. "Many cases go unreported," says he.
Add Shiv Sena's Camilo D'Souza: "People come here for sunbathing. They don't come to give you (some perverse pleasure). If you want that, go to Baina (the sleazy and distant red-light quarter of Goa.)
But one beach-belt constable commented: "They're (leading licentious lives) all the time... then some complain of rape. Police who effected the arrests won't even get monetary rewards, but just a favourable comment in their service records." It is anyone's guess, whether such attitudes will take crime-solvers far.



Bollywood film director Prabhakar Shukla confirmed that he’s planning to make a film called Rave Party about the recent rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa, though denied his movie will be only about the 15 year old’s killing. “Goa is a tourist paradise, but I want to show the darker side of the popular tourist spot. People like watching reality; so I have decided to show reality in my film,” he told Indian website ThaIndian.com. “I will surely show the corrupt officers in the film. But I will also show how the drug mafia exploits tourists and what happens at rave parties,” he promised.