Solve German rape case, it is affecting tourism: Minister

Panaji – Goa’s Tourism Minister Fransisco Pacheco on Sunday asked State Home Minister Ravi Naik to take the alleged German girl rape case to its logical conclusion as the case is affecting state’s tou

Panaji – Goa’s Tourism Minister Fransisco Pacheco on Sunday asked State Home Minister Ravi Naik to take the alleged German girl rape case to its logical conclusion as the case is affecting state’s tourism industry.

“There is utter confusion in the minds of the citizens as well as the tourists who are desirous of visiting the state as to how safe one could be in Goa,” Pacheco said in a letter to Naik on Sunday.

“Please issue strict orders to your department to bring these cases to its logical conclusion. Let the message be loud and clear that in Goa nobody is above the law, however, mighty and influential he may be,” the minister said.

The Tourism Minister referred to the charges of rape against state education Minister Atanasio Monserratte’s son Rohit and Public Works Department Minister’s nephew Warren by a German mother accusing them of raping her minor daughter.

Incidentally, Pacheco was the first minister to raise his voice of dissident after British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling’s death case was brought to light.
“There is utter confusion. I have been receiving several calls from both domestic as well as international tourists inquiring about the safety aspect in Goa,” the letter reads.

The letter adds: despite my best efforts to convince them that Goa is safe and will continue to be a safe place and that these are incidents in isolation, people somehow do not seem to believe us.

The minister has said the state got bad publicity for last season after British teenager was murdered. “Frequent occurrence of such incidents badly affect the name and the image of Goa,” he said.

Pacheco said the ministry as well as stake holders of the industry are trying hard to put their strategies in place to ensure that the flow of tourists in Goa is not on the decline.

“Goa is fast getting insecure tag due to the adverse publicity as a result of frequent occurrence of such crimes,” he said.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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