Sexual assault/harassment threat in palolem

Baby Zebra

Hello Board Members!

I am writing this to warn any female travelers' who are alone or just don't have a male with them to not stay at the janisha bungalows in palolem. the owner/manager elvis has been making intimidating comments to my friends, two dutch girls, and i am told this is not an isolated incident but that most women simply choose to leave quietly. Upon arriving he made a comment about wanting to have sex with both of them. They stood their ground and for a week the problem seemed to have gone away but then he recommenced pestering and harassing them. From my observations he uses a 2 year old girl (for whom the bungalows and resturant are named: janisha, 5th of august) to lure in unsuspecting girls, in true sexual predator fashion. He has always been sickly nice to me when i was arround; sensing, i think, that i was looking after them, but after i told him i was leaving and paid my bill the harassment got much worse so i'm staying today to warn girls about the danger. Last night he woke them up at 2 in the morning and told them their room rate would go up from 100 rps a night to 300 rps a night unless they left in the morning. This morning he called them prostitutes and lower than the local prositutes and i get the impression that if my friends were not so fiery the situation might not have ended at words. Please tell anyone travelling to palolem not to stay at Janisha, but specifically this is a warning to solo female travelers.

I do not mean to implicate anyone else working there, they have all been perfectly nice and embrassed at their bosses behavior.

Thanks!

Here are pictures of the cafe/bungalows and of elvis, the owner, who was more than happy to pose for a picture even after i made my discontent known.

http://www.4shared.com/dir/362354/a5a050c7/Janisha.html

Baby Zebra

Duplicate after thread merger - same as above

Indojingai

Nice work.

Have those girls go to the local police station. If you think the police and this hotel are hand in glove. Go to the police in another big city ... may be Bombay and file a complaint.

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anindya911

Hi Baby Zebra

Its a very good on your part that you chose to expose the lecher. It will be best to report the same to the local police station. The Govt. of Goa is touchy about the tourists (overseas; that is) and do not want anything that upsets them.
Hence, the local police presumably will be helpful. You can check out the website of Goa Police. If they don't help try the newspaper agencies. Some links to website related to Goa is here.

Hope this helps.

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passingby

the Tourist police should help you. don't be afraid to go to the police and report this guy.

Sketchy

Sounds all to familiar Baby Zebra
If you want a great place to stay with a fantastic owner go and see Manju at River Valley at the north end of the beach- just dont tell anyone about it!

jivan

I don't know what to say, sad u guys have to face such things

Merchant

This seems pretty extreme to make allegations and post the guy's picture. If he were an American he could sue you.

Everything you say about him may be true, but at the moment, it's just heresay.

If he did anything criminal to you or your party, you should have contacted the local police.

proxyindian

http://www.hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/

This is a blog from New York City of people who take pictures of their harrassers. It's rather interesting but does contain a tiny bit of nudity which I warn you becuase I don't want to get in trouble here. I found it recently from an article in the Villiage Voice (http://www.villagevoice.com/news/061...,72978,6.html). It talks about privacy and libel issues.

caroiana

Spoken like a true man!

passingby

why is it so hard for some men to believe that Western females do get harassed quite a lot in India?

I don't know how many times on my first trip in India I heard solo women travelers complaining about harassment and never did anything about it... like complaining to the police.
even myself I have never complained of being harassed to the police, but I was harassed quite a lot and one time even being attacked by a man in Ooty.

Vibhu Jindal

Its not hard to believe that western women do get harrased in India...but dosent our very own indian ladies get the same treatement......

Baby Zebra how were you able to get this assholes photo, did he agreed readily to get his pic clicked??, if what ur saying is true then i can only say "bravo bravo " and infact i would request the Moderaters to send special message to all members with the pics warning of the impending danger

......dealing with Indian police is not so easy as suggested by many contributors who say "oh, why didnt u goto police and complain to them"....

Western women not being familiar with tactics to deal with this treatement are considered easier pray by this breed of my brotherhood...hence much more attempts are made on foreign female rather than an indian female.

I hope somebody kicks that asshole's "assholean butt"

steven_ber

It seems to me that some poeple are getting angry at the thought of what this person could have done, rather than what he actually done.


That should have told a person to stay away from the hotel, not stay in the hotel, and I fear that if 2 girls stayed in a hotel after those comments, it may send the wrong signals to a pervert.

And if the room cost had been reduced to attract the girls, that may lead to the prostitute comments.

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Yogesh Sarkar

what i fail to understand is, why the hell are those girls still staying in that hotel???

i mean i understand that they dont want anything to do with the police, but why the hell stay in a place like this?

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caroiana

i notice that other than passingby and myself, everyone here is male, which might lend to some of the questions posed as to why the girls are still staying and why people are angry over what "could have" happened. but please try to understand from the perspective of a woman - western or eastern, in america or in india - the dominance of the man. the police - most likely men - will most likely tell the victim of harrassment that UNLESS something DID happen, they can't do anything. and when proof of harrassment is required, the word of one man is often taken as better than the word of two women.

i do not know this man, hotel, or these women, but my assumption is that the girls did not want to at first appear shaken or weakened by his inappropriate comments, figured they could put up with it for a couple days or that it was somewhat typical and totally harmless, so they stayed on. when the harrassment escalated, they left, and this warning was issued to IMers by a male friend who recognized the threat, and that going to the police probably wouldn't have stopped other women from realizing what could happen to them if they stepped into this trap.

and as for the comments regarding what could have happened, i work with a survivors advocacy network, and one of the largest problems we face is guilt from survivors and their family members because they saw something that could have happened, which quickly turned into what did happen.

I greatly appreciate the warning issued regarding this hotel, whether or not it is entirely true. Because I would never want to find out the wrong way that it is.