By IANS,
Panaji : Three men have been arrested in connection with the death of 65-year-old Australian tourist John Kelly at a beachside bar in north Goa, the police said here Thursday.
The three were employed as waiters in the bar where they had an altercation with Kelly. They have been identified as Manak Basak, 2, Jagat Pradhan, 23 and Jaykrishna Das, 25.
The police alleged that on Wednesday morning, Kelly was assaulted by the three waiters at the Club City restaurant at Calangute, a popular beach lined with bars and restaurants.
Kelly was declared dead at the Goa Medical College in Bambolim. The post mortem examination report is expected later Thursday.
With the Australian’s death, Goa’s tourism season has hit turbulence even as the first chartered tourist flight landed in the early hours of Thursday.
While the notorious death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling slowed the flow of foreign tourists to Goa last season, Kelly’s has the potential to do the same this season, which ranges from October to March.
“It is a sad thing to happen, especially at the beginning of the new tourism season. But it is an isolated case and details are awaited,” Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) vice chairman Lyndon Monteiro told the media late Wednesday.
Tourism in Goa had already threatened to take a downward dip after the Australian and Canadian governments had put out travel advisories asking citizens to avoid travel to India due to security reasons. “We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in India because of the high risk of terrorist activity by militant groups,” the Australian advisory had said.