VIBHA VERMA
vibha@herald-goa.com
THIVIM: The iron gates were locked and about four to five children were in the midst of a discussion in a non-lit room at Cansa-Thivim when this reporter approached one of them. A lady then walked out of another room asking what I wanted.
This Home located on the busy Thivim road used to house some 30-plus underprivileged children and was one of the two dormitories run by UK-based charity home Light House. However, the premises did not have any board identifying the institution, which had a shabby-muddy lawn in the front and a small children’s park behind.
The lady said that this was indeed the “Light House”.
“Yes. But it is closed for more than four months,” she said identifying herself as Sumitra T from Karnataka. Incidentally, the Goa government had ordered the closure of this home because it was unfit to take care of the welfare of the children on July 30. So it’s clear that the British duo who ran the Charity shut shop and left much before that, possibly when the sexual encounter concerning Motilal their staffer and the minor girl was exposed in mid-April.
The soft-spoken woman, employed as a cook with the home, now stays here on rent as she has no alternate accommodation. She fears when the local authorities will ask her to vacate the premises as she recently heard that government has directed that the institution be closed.
“This place where I am staying was boys’ dormitory. Everything was functioning smoothly until one day when police came and arrested Motilal. He was staying in the dormitory with his wife (also an employee with Light House),” she recalled.
While she is apprehensive to talk about the incident where a minor girl was the victim, she told this reporter that the Trust was anyway supposed to shut its functioning.
“After the police came here, they (Graham and Tricia Philips Clarke) left for their country and closed the home. They did not want to be a part of the mess in Goa. They also had to make arrangements for their daughter’s wedding in Britain in June,” she said.
When asked about the urgency in shutting shut down the operations and about the other inmates of the House, Sumitra though uncertain about the present status of those children, said some were shifted to another charitable Trust El-Shaddai in Goa while the rest were sent back to their families.
Matthew Kurien of El-Shaddai told Herald that parents of a couple of children approached the Trust for admission. “We are nowhere directly linked to the Trust (Light House). They (the couple) left India, some parents approached us to admit their children in our home, and we accepted because we work to help the needy/poor children,” he said.
“The institution was running well. Because of the two (Motilal and the victim), we all have been rendered homeless. They (foreign couple) were good and took care of the children,” Sumitra said.
A couple of children inside the House, she soon pointed out, were happily staying here until things fell apart and they are now scattered.
A visit to the girls’ dormitory located deep inside the Dhat Dulat Waddo showed that it was about one km away from the boys’ dormitory. It too now stands closed.
The question is how did Motilal have a relationship with the minor girl when the two dormitories were at such a distance from each other, or was it probably because it was so far that he got an opportunity to get away from his family.
“Both were (allegedly) in a relationship. Once he had even spent a night at the victim’s house.” Sumitra alleged adding they had had eloped earlier.
With tear-filled eyes, she said that she is now compelled to work in different houses on daily wages to earn her living. “I have a daughter who was also under the care of the shelter home,” she commented claiming the UK couple still pays rent to its original owner Dr Meena.
