MARGAO: The
Margao police suspect the existence of a racket that cons people on the pretext of acquiring Portuguese passports for them.
They stumbled upon the clue while interrogating Vinod Kumar, a native of
Kerala, who was recently arrested for molesting a 37-year-old woman, also from Kerala, at a hotel in Margao.
“While there may have been cases of people being fooled after they were promised Portuguese passports, this may be the first instance of a woman from another state being lured into coming to Goa and then being sexually molested,” an official said.
What has created concerns for the police is the information revealed by the accused about his links to a left-wing political party in Kerala. The accused said he was employed as an area secretary of the party in the village of Mangalapuram.
Kumar and the victim woman had come to Goa after the former promised her assistance to obtain a Portuguese passport. Upon arriving in Margao, they checked into different rooms in the same hotel. The next morning the accused called her to his room to meet a ‘passport official’ who, he told her, had come to meet them. But when she came to his room, Kumar began sexually molesting her. The woman, however, managed to free herself.
The police encountered difficulties in the interrogation as both the accused and the victim knew no other language besides
Malayalam. The police, it is learnt, interrogated the duo with the help of interpreters.
Although Kumar was arrested under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), he subsequently secured bail.
The police have underscored the need for people to check the credentials of those offering to assist one in making Portuguese passports before trusting them.
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