Two days after an embarrassing police lapse led to the escape of an under-trial accused of raping a British tourist last year, an Irish mother, whose daughter was murdered on a Goa beach in 2017, has demanded that the person being tried for the murder be handcuffed to and from court hearings.
On June 28, Tamil Nadu native Ramchandra Yellappa, who was arrested in connection with the rape of the 48-year-old British lady, fled after jumping through the window of a toilet in the court complex in Margao town, in South Goa. The two police personnel escorting him were suspended from service on Saturday for the lapse.
After the news of his escape went viral through the week, an alarmed Andrea Brannigan in Ireland, whose 28-year-old daughter Danielle McLaughlin was murdered by Vikat Bhagat, a local resident, near the popular Palolem beach in South Goa, has demanded that he be cuffed on his way to and from the court for the trial.
"The accused in my daughter's murder walking to the court in Goa without handcuffs so he could easily escape as two suspects in two separate rapes in Goa have escaped in the last six months,"(sic) the mother tweeted while tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Danielle was holidaying in the South Goa beach village and was known to the accused. Police claim that the accused had murdered the Irish tourist by stabbing her with a beer bottle. Police had arrested Vikas Bhagat,26, a history-sheeter in connection with the murder.