Even though a minor girl became pregnant under their watch at the shelter home at Tivim in April, the police department failed to speak to the couple running the home even four months after the incident.
The home run by the Light House Trust came under the scanner after the girl eloped with her married lover after her pregnancy was discovered. The mother initially filed a case of kidnapping and later rape was added to the case after the girl was found to be pregnant. She had an abortion in the Goa Medical College and Hospital in April. The accused, Light House staff member Motilal Lamani was arrested on April 15. He had surrendered before the police after the case was filed.
The foreign couple Graham and Tricia Philips Clarke, who had left the country before things came to a head, abandoned the charity home that housed 32 inmate boys and girls.
Children’s Rights in Goa director Nishtha Desai, who was a part of the block inspection team that was entrusted to inspect the premises after the rape incident on April 22, confirmed that no one was present expect for one staffer. “There was one staff member, a very junior person. We had asked for the records, but he could not produce them. The foreign couple was also not there,” she told Herald.
As Herald investigated further, it was found that the Trust operated as shelter home even as their registration under the Juvenile Justice Act was pending before the government. The application was cancelled on July 30.
Neither the Old Goa police nor the north district head SP Priyanka Kashyap had contacted or spoken to the couple. Local authorities were also unaware of the whereabouts of the other children. After it was reported in the Herald’s that some of the children could be in a home administered by the El-Shaddai Charitable Trust, the police found 27 of them admitted there.
The Women and Child Department that began hearing the case in April also sent them show cause notices, reply of which came only a month later on May 28.
From April 7 to May 28, a lot of developments took place right from the discovery of the relationship between the minor and the staffer, her pregnancy, their eloping to Hubli only to return to Goa a week later, the termination of her pregnancy with government permission.
Questions arise on why investigations were not conducted at that time, and inquiries only ordered after the case was highlighted in the media.