PANAJI
The Mapusa police have arrested touts who on the pretext of showing a good hotel looted 11 young tourists from Chandgad, Maharashtra and blackmailed them by clicking nude photos.
A group of 11 students from Chandgad, Maharashtra were approached by the group of touts near Bodgeshwar temple.
The touts took the youth to a massage parlour, held them hostage and beat them, removing all their clothes. The touts also clicked their photos along with some women and threatened them to make the photos and videos viral. The touts took all cash and other materials from these youth worth Rs 1.8 lakh.
The touts are native of Haryana Sachin Rajkumar Bharadwaj (26 yrs), Ashish Jagir Singh (27) and native of Tamil Nadu Mubarak Ali Maula (20) arrested by the police under section 347, 504, 323, 395, 506 (2), 298 and 34 of IPC.
The incident took place on May 24. However, one of the victim youth lodged the complaint on Sunday morning. These youth had arrived in Goa on Monday. They stayed in Baga on that day. On the second day when they were near Bodgeshwar temple one person approached them and promised to show a hotel which provides cheaper and good quality food. However, the touts held these youth hostage in the massage parlour. They took their gold rings and cash. Some youth were made naked by removing their clothes and their photographs were taken along with women applying oil on their head. The touts then threatened the youth to make the video viral.
The whole episode lasted for three hours after that the touts released the youth. Soon after the episode, the traumatised youth returned to their hometown. The youth were frightened and humiliated in such a way that some even thought of committing suicide.
However, one of the youth contacted a Maharashtra activist and lawyer Santosh Malvikar and narrated the full episode to him.
Advocate Malvikar along with the youth approached Chandgad Police Station where it was told to the youth to approach Mapusa police station as the crime had occurred in the jurisdiction of Mapusa police station.
After that a police complaint was lodged in Mapusa police station. Police had details of some touts operating in the State and based on these details police identified one of the accused and arrested him.
Under the guidance of DySP Jivba Dalvi, PI Paresh Naik along with his team PSI Viraj Korgaonkar, Gourav Naik, Ashish Porob, Sushant Chopdekar, Rajesh Kandolkar, Prakash Polekar, Akshay Patil, Anand Rathod acted in this case.
Police have suspicion that the parlour from which the touts gang was operative is the centre of all these illegal activities.
