When asked about the steps the government was taking to curb incidents like the one that took place on the south Goa beach, Sawant said, “The government cannot provide security to every individual. We need to change the mentality of the people.”
Goa’s BJP women wing chief Sulakshana Sawant has made sensational comments saying that the government could not provide security to every individual. She made the comments while speaking on the rise in rape cases and the gang rape of a 20-year-old girl by three tourists on a beach in Goa last month.
“We need to change the mentality of the people. We cannot provide security to every individual. But an individual can act as a protector of the other,” said Sulakshana Sawant on Saturday, commenting on the gang rape of a woman in Goa last month.
The rape of a 20-year-old woman by three tourists at South Goa’s Betalbatim beach on 25 May has once again triggered a debate on women safety in the state. Goa attracts more than seven million tourists every year, out of which half a million are foreigners.
Sawant further said that more rape cases were being registered because more women were coming forward to report such crimes.
Only a few rape cases were reported earlier, but now many women are coming forward and reporting cases as they believe something might change it,” she said.
Sawant added that the women’s wing of the BJP in the state will request the tourism department to install CCTVs on beach stretches which are aloof in order to prevent untoward incidents, reported NDTV.
“We will tell the tourism department to install CCTVs at the beaches which are aloof and prone to crimes. But when something happens, one has to be proactive to act against it,” Sawant said.
In the past too, several party leaders have kicked up controversy by making insensitive comments on rapes. In April this year, Union minister Santosh Gangwar said a “brouhaha” should not be created over one or two rape cases in a big country like India.
“Such incidents [rape cases] are unfortunate situation… But sometimes you can’t stop them. In such a huge country, if one or two such cases are reported, one should not make a big deal out of it,” the minister had said, quoted Times Now.
Earlier in 2015, then tourism minister Dilip Parulekar, commenting on the gang-rape of two Delhi-based women in Goa, said it was a “small incident” and that it occurs where tourism flourishes. “I have said this in the past and I am saying this again that in places where tourism flourishes such small incidents occur,” Parulekar had said.
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