By IANS,
Panaji : The rape of a middle-aged woman on Christmas eve at the popular Arambol beach took place right next to a fortified bunker and in close vicinity of a police outpost, former state Bharatiya Janata Party president Laxmikant Parsenkar says.
Parsenkar, a member of the Goa assembly, told IANS Friday that the rape occurred just a few metres away from a fortified police bunker and about 60 metres from a police outpost at Arambol that is manned by an officer of assistant sub-inspector rank.
“The woman was gang-raped right next to a bunker when the whole state was on alert on December 24 looking for terrorists. The heads of policemen who were on duty at the Pernem police station and the outpost have to roll,” Parsenkar said, adding that the incident was reflective of the state of affairs in Goa.
Asked about this, Superintendent of Police (North) Bosco George said: “I’ll have to check whether the bunker was manned at that point of time. Each bunker had specific timings, as to when they should be manned.”
The victim, who was left on the beach to die, was identified as a local woman who used to sell flowers on the beach for a living and a resident of Mandrem, from where Parsenkar has been elected. She was found naked near the bunker on the beach by fishermen who were returning from the sea.
The police had erected sand-bagged bunkers on the beach as a security measure after intelligence inputs said that Goa could be a potential target for a terror attack by sea.
“Of what use are these bunkers if the police themselves are incompetent?” Parsenkar wondered. “Police officials pay hefty sums to get a lucrative posting at the Arambol outpost so that they can extort money from tourists and shelter their favourite drug dealers,” he alleged.