Goa Man Held Guilty of Raping and Murdering Foreign Tourist

A Goa court on Friday found a 31-year-old man guilty of raping and murdering a British-Irish backpacker at Palolem beach in March 2017, bringing the curtain down on a grisly crime that rocked the coastal state and triggered sweeping concerns about the safety of women tourists.

- Gerard de Souza

Margao district sessions judge Kshama Joshi found Vikat Bhagat guilty under sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The quantum of the sentence will be pronounced on Monday.

"Accused is held guilty and convicted," Joshi said. The detailed order was yet to be made public.

The victim's family broke down; her tearful mother and sisters hugged and thanked investigating officers. "We have lost eight years of our life and we are so grateful that we can now start grieving her immeasurable loss," the family said in a prepared statement.

Vikat Bhagat, who was 24 at the time, was last seen in the company of the tourist on March 13, 2017, on the eve of Holi at Palolem, a coastal village in south Goa where she was staying with an Australian friend to celebrate the festival. Next morning, her unclothed body was found at an isolated location some distance from the beach.

A post-mortem concluded that the 28-year-old woman died due to brain haemorrhage and constriction of the neck, and that she was raped before being murdered. The woman was on her third trip to India and had befriended the sole accused, Bhagat, the year before, according to witnesses who interacted with the two the day before she was killed.

Bhagat was a petty criminal who had earlier been booked for theft, assault and other charges.

The rape and murder was one of the most high-profile crimes against foreigners in Goa, and brought back memories of the Scarlett Keeling case from 2008.

The crime sent shockwaves through the state's tourism industry, especially among the small but tightly knit community of foreign tourists who interacted with her during her stay at Palolem.