“We had been planning this trip for the past several months. “This was my first time in Goa, and the way I was assaulted with knives and belts, I will never be able to visit the place again,” said Jatin Sharma, 24, days after he and his family were assaulted by a group of men, including a hotel staffer, during their four-day trip to Anjuna in North Goa.
“My family of seven, including my mother and sister, landed in Goa and checked into a hotel on March 5,” a recovering Sharma told The Indian Express from Greater Noida. A few hours later, at the swimming pool, one of the staff members made an inappropriate remark.
When we raised it with the hotel staff, they suspended him for the period of our stay, but he started threatening us with consequences for complaining against him.”
When Sharma and his family were outside the resort around 6 p.m., the suspended staffer, Royston Dias alias Roshan, and at least three others began arguing with them, which escalated into a physical fight.
“They thrashed me with knives, baseball bats, and belts, injuring the left side of my chest. When my uncle and 59-year-old father tried to intervene, they attacked them, too. “My uncle got a cut on his right palm, and my father got multiple injuries on his right hand,” Sharma, a salon owner, explained.
Sharma’s uncle and complainant Ashwini Kumar (47) said that the ordeal went on for 15 to 20 minutes before the accused fled the spot. “My wife and niece kept screaming for help, but the men did not stop,” Kumar, a Delhi High Court advocate, said.
All three were taken to a nearby hospital, where Kumar was released, and Sharma and his father Anil were referred to Bambolim’s Goa Medical College. After being released on March 6, the family went to another resort and returned on March 9. “We only went out on our last day because we were traumatised by the incident and worried that we would be attacked again,” Sharma explained.
“We went there to spend some quality time with our family, but it was cut short by such an unfortunate incident,” Anil Sharma said. My son is unable to walk or speak properly. This is not how tourists should be treated, especially in their own country.”
Sharma had uploaded a video on Instagram narrating the incident. The Goa police have arrested four people, including Royston, and raids are ongoing to arrest more, an officer said.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant took to Twitter calling the incident shocking and intolerable and stated that he has directed the police to take the harshest action against the perpetrators. According to the FIR, initially a case was registered under IPC section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt).
