Goa: Taxi driver held for molesting US tourist

A middle-aged motorcycle taxi rider was arrested today for allegedly molesting a US woman tourist on January 27, police said.

Isidore Fernandes was picked up from Anjuna village after the woman, who is in her 20s, took to social media and posted the picture of the accused, according to police.

"Police then asked the woman to file a formal complaint of molestation with Pernem police station as she was staying in a hotel at Morjim village," said North Goa SP Chandan Chaudhury.

Quoting the complaint, the officer said Fernandes waylaid the woman after she had hired his services at Arpora market for dropping her to her hotel on Saturday night.

"The accused waylaid the woman into some dark bylanes on the way and tried to get physical. The woman resisted and ran away," the SP said.

The woman later posted Fernandes' picture on her FB page and also narrated the incident on social media.

“He picked me up post-dinner, and when we were making our way back to my hotel in Morjim that he started misbehaving. He asked me if I would give him a kiss and obviously, I said no. I tried to keep it light and suggested he ‘keep it professional’.”

“I noticed that he kept taking turns into lanes that weren’t on our route and he kept saying that they were shortcuts, but it had already been 40 minutes on his bike,” the Facebook post said. “As we drove along, he forced my hands and took them under his shirt and despite constantly telling him to ‘keep it professional’, he took my hands further down over his pants. And then he said he needed to pull over,” the post added.

Last year, about a dozen French nationals, including females, were abused, molested and thrashed by local goons in Mirzapur district. The incident took place when the tourists visited a waterfall in Lekhania Dari under Ahraura police station in Mirzapur along with an Indian friend. While they were enjoying their visit, three locals passed lewd remarks on girls and abused them.

When French nationals objected, it led to an argument and soon tuned into a fight. Since the locals were less in numbers they left and returned with 10 more people who thrashed the tourists. In the fight a French tourist sustained injuries on his hands, face and neck.

Earlier in the year, a Swiss couple was attacked in Fatehpur Sikri in Agra ago by a group of local touts pressing for photographs. The Swiss man had suffered fractures in the attack and couple was treated at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital. Police rounded up about 50 touts and arrested a couple of them involved in the attack after public outrage over the incident. A Russian woman was allegedly raped by a bank manager in Vrindavan in Mathura in October. The bank manager was arrested after she lodged an FIR with the Mathura Police.