Panaji, Dec 6 (IANS) Women's groups in Goa are up in arms over what they allege is a "virtual pardon" to a police head constable who forced a prostitute to perform oral sex on him in a police patrol car in the presence of two constables - one of whom filmed it on his mobile phone - and demanded criminal cases be filed against the three.

While the Goa police Saturday suspended the head constable Santosh Naik after a ten-month long "preliminary" enquiry, women's groups Bailancho Saad and Bailancho Manch have demanded that Naik be booked for rape and the other two constables charged with abetment to rape.

"The decision to merely suspend the head constable is highly condemnable. This is a case where a woman was pulled into a police jeep by uniformed police personnel on duty and threatened with arrest if she did not perform oral sex. Suspension is not the answer. Criminal charges should have been slapped against all three constables," Sabina Martins of the Bailancho Saad and a former member of the Goa state commission for women told IANS Sunday.

Accusing the police of virtually letting off the police officials involved, Martins said that it was deplorable that not even a criminal complaint was filed by the police despite the whole act being captured on a mobile camera and brought on record during the enquiry.

Auda Viegas, convenor of the Bailancho Manch, said that when it came to the Goa police, suspension as a matter of disciplinary action was a mere sham in most cases.

"We have no faith in suspension. They (suspended officials) are reinstated almost every time. The head constable should be charged with rape. As a law keeper he was enjoying sex in an official police car, while the victim was in duress. He should be charged with rape and the others with abetment," Viegas said.

In February this year, Naik and two other constables in a police control room (PCR) van, pulled up next to a prostitute near Calangute beach, pulled her in their official vehicle and threatened her with arrest, if she did not perform oral sex.

The sex act with the head constable was then filmed by one of the constables and the MMS was circulated among the police force, before senior officials came to know of the incident and initiated an enquiry.