By IANS
New Delhi : The rise in the number of rape and molestation cases across the country targeting women tourists has forced the government to review the safety and security of visitors.
Tourism Secretary Shilabhadra Banerjee has written to the chief secretaries of all states to ensure proper measures are in place and summoned state tourism secretaries to Delhi Jan 24 to take stock of what needs to be done to make tourist destinations secure.
“State tourism secretaries are meeting the union tourism ministry on Jan 24 to review the tourism projects and related issues in New Delhi. It has now been decided that safety and security of the tourists would be one of the main topics on the agenda,” said a statement issued by the ministry Thursday.
In his letter to the chief secretaries, Banerjee referred to recent media reports of harassment of women tourists and reminded the state governments about the concerns of the union government on the safety and security of foreign as well as domestic tourists.
The letter also stressed the need for deployment of tourist police at places of tourist importance.
In the last one year there has been a spate of cases of rape, especially in Rajasthan that has witnessed the maximum of such cases. Over New Year’s Eve, cases of molestation of tourists were reported both in Mumbai and Kochi.
A British journalist has alleged she was raped by the owner of the guesthouse in Udaipur where she was staying last week. In another incident in Rajasthan, a 28-year-old American tourist was allegedly molested by a priest in front of a temple on the banks of the holy lake in the Hindu pilgrim town of Pushkar. The guesthouse owner as well as the priest were subsequently arrested.
In March last year, Bitti Mohanty, the son of former Orissa director general of police B.B. Mohanty, was found guilty of raping a German researcher in Rajasthan. His father, accused of helping Bitti to jump parole after imprisonment, surrendered before a Jaipur court Thursday.
Last year, a Japanese tourist complained that she was duped by a group of men in Pushkar, drugged at a hotel and raped.
According to police, Mumbai, regarded as among the safest Indian cities for women, still logs one case of rape every two days. The country’s financial capital registered 133 rape cases in 2003, which rose to 163 in 2007.
The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau shows there has been a phenomenal eight-fold increase in rapes in India since 1971. Across the country 19,348 cases of rape were registered in 2006 – almost 1,000 cases more than the previous year.