India acts on tourist assaults
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By Anil Mathur
The Indian travel industry has expressed concern over the recent incidents of harassment of women foreign tourists and called for stern steps to check this.
The recently elected president of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, Vijay Thakur, has asked the government to install tourist police at all tourist centres.
He warned that any damage to India’s image would directly affect tourist arrivals, which India could ill afford to lose.
In the latest such incident, two Canadian irls in the south Indian state of Kerala were molested by a security guard of a hotel. In another recent case, a British journalist was allegedly raped by the owner of a guest house in Udaipur and an American tourist was molested at a temple in Pushkar, both major tourist destinations in Rajasthan.
Thakur added that the black sheep were bringing bad name to the country and adversely affecting the growth of inbound tourism. The job opportunities that the industry generates would also suffer, the IATO president warned.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Secretary S Banerjee has written to all state governments, expressing concern at the incidents and has called for a review of security measures for the tourists.
A high-level meeting is to be convened on Janaury 24 to review safety and security measures for tourists, reports said.
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