A 30-year-old man from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu has been arrested for raping a middle-aged British woman and robbing her belongings early on Thursday near the beach village of Palolem, police said.
Superintendent of Police (South Goa) Arvind Gawas said that CCTV footage near the scene of the offence and at the local railway station helped police track down the accused at the Margao railway station, located 35 km from Canacona village.
"The accused has been identified as Ramachandran, 30, and is from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. We arrested him as he was trying to flee from the Margao police station," Gawas said.
The accused allegedly raped the British national around 4.30 a.m. when she was returning from the Canacona railway station to her guest house near Palolem beach after missing a train. Police have booked the accused for rape as well as robbery.
Police said that the accused first tried to rob her and chased her into nearby fields and then raped her, before fleeing with her bags which contained Rs 20,000 in cash. The victim is a regular visitor to Goa for the last 10 years.
Goa is a popular tourism destination attracting more than seven million tourists every year, half a million being foreign nationals.
Over the last decade, crimes against foreigners, especially women, has been a cause for concern in Goa, especially after the sexual assault and subsequent death of a British teenager Scarlett Keeling in 2018.
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--IANS
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