Man held in Karnataka for raping Russian girl at Goa resort

Panaji: The Goa Police have arrested a man from his hometown in neighboring Karnataka for allegedly raping a 12-year-old Russian girl at a resort in Arambol in North Goa, where he worked as a room attendant, an official said on Thursday. The accused, Ravi Lamani (28), a married man, was arrested by a team of Pernem police on May 10 at Gadag in Karnataka for the incident of sexual assault that had happened on May 6. The mother of the victim had lodged a complaint on May 9, he said.

Talking to PTI, inspector of Pernem police station, Vikram Naik, said the woman complained that her minor daughter was sexually assaulted in the swimming pool of the resort and later inside the hotel room by the accused, who works as a room attendant at the resort.

”As per the complaint, the incident took place when the girl’s mother had gone out to fetch some necessary items from a nearby market in Arambol, leaving her daughter behind in the swimming pool,” he said. Naik said the accused had fled after the incident.

”But within 24 hours of receiving the complaint, the accused was arrested after he was traced in Gadag,” he said.

Lamani was booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 376 (rape), section 8 of the Goa Children’s Act, and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Naik said.