------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Documented by Goa Desc Resource Centre Ph:2252660 Website: www.goadesc.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Clippings on the web: http://www.goadesc.org/mem/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------- Rape of the Innocents - Modus Operandi ----------------------------------------------------- by Joaquim Fernandes
Protector, provider, the revered Indian 'Daataah' that seems to be the guise the paedophile often adopts to win the gratitude and trust of his victims. Goa first woke up to this scourge of paedophilia with the exposure of Freddy Peats' 'gurukul' racket in 1991. Having obtained his conviction, Goa slumped into cosy smugness. Until now.
On the night of October 11, officers from the Crime branch of Goa police arrested 56-year old Avelino John Pinto, from Mapusa on the complaint of a 13-year old girl, Diya (name changed). Based on her complaint, police have filed charges of rape, molestation, wrongful confinement and issuing threats under sections of the Indian Penal Code. Pinto has also been charged under Section 8 of the newly-introduced Goa Children's Act.
Besides Pinto, Diya has also filed a separate complaint with the same charges against 50-year old Francis Fernandes, owner of the Taal Bar in Peddem, Mapusa. Fernandes was arrested on the morning of October 11. He was however granted bail on October 29.
While Fernandes has only Diya's one complaint of sexual abuse against him,
three other minor girls, between the ages of 12 to 14, have also filed separate
complaints against Avelino Pinto, accusing him of sexually abusing them.
The medical examination of all four has confirmed their charge. While Diya's
parents hail from Bardez, the other three girls are children of immigrant
labourers. What the girls have in common is poverty; an acute economic
destitution.
Paedophiles apparently prey on such people. Pinto, a fair-skinned, white-haired but a dandyish bachelor who speaks fluent English and Konkani with a marked Mangalorean accent, befriended Diya and father in a Mapusa restaurant.
Diya's mother, a housewife, does not work. Her father is highly educated, works in a humbler profession but is reportedly a slave to liquor. Diya was studying in standard eighth last year when in a fit of drunken rage one day, he burnt her books. Similar incidents forced her to drop out of school. As her father kept up his alcoholic profligacy, harsh poverty set in.
Enter the 'benefactor'. Allegedly at Pinto's behest, sometime after January 2003, the family moved home and hearth from their village to his house in Mapusa. Diya has said Pinto promised to deck her in gold from head to toe. She said she received gold jewellery from him little knowing he would demand her innocence.
Police sources say he abused her when the parents went out in search of work and threatened her to keep her quiet. Pinto also allegedly brought home the other minor girls. Diya claims she asked him if he also took the other girls out like he took her. He told her they were 'ghanttis' (a derogatory term for poor immigrants) and it was not fitting for him to be seen with them.
Social activists say that is a clever paedophile ploy. Like Freddy Peats, Pinto had to maintain a respectable public face. Diya's mother then got a job at Fernandes' bar. He learnt of Diya's abuse by Pinto and taking advantage of the family's dependence on him, allegedly started abusing her himself. A furious Pinto, besides approaching Children's Rights in Goa and the Goa State Commission for Women, also sent complaints to the police and Bailancho Saad that the girl was into prostitution. His jealousy did him in.
Pinto had been on the surveillance radar of social organisations for years, their activists claim. Their cache of Pinto-related documents shows a sordid saga of sex and deceit. They even have a copy of a declaration cum affidavit which shows how Pinto, in a dubious transaction, got a destitute father to surrender his two daughters, aged five and ten, to Pinto in November 1992.
So when the Bailancho Saad approached Diya, she confided to them and was encouraged to file police complaints against both her tormentors. In all this sleazy business, all concerned are puzzled at the level of complicity, if any, of Diya's parents. ----------------------------------------------------- The Navhind Times 6/11/03 page 5 -----------------------------------------------------
======================================= GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE Documentation + Education + Solidarity 11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507 Tel: 2252660 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] website: www.goadesc.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Working On Issues Of Development & Democracy =======================================
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