Another paedophile flees India ?

Sandesh Prabhudesai
13 April 2000  

Not even two months have passed for a case of a 'wanted' paedophile fleeing the country coming to light, yet another paedophile appears to have fled the country, jumping the bail in Goa.

Dominique Sabire, a French national arrested by the Delhi CBI in an infamous child abuse racket run here by Freddy Peats in early '90s, has not reported to the Calangute police station since 27 February.

The state government has now requested the South Goa district and sessions court to cancel his bail, which was granted to him on 23 June last year. Sabire had managed to get it modified on 16 February that he would henceforth report to the Calangute police station every alternate day instead of the local CBI office in Panaji.

Interestingly, both the criminals – a German national Brinkman Helmut in October last year and now French national Sabire in February – have disappeared from India while delay is caused on the part of Calangute police inspector Subhash Goltekar in informing his higher officials.

Brinkman was arrested in August 1998 by Calangute police for allegedly kidnapping a 12-year old boy from Bombay and harassing him sexually in a Goan hotel. He was then convicted in February last year with six years rigorous imprisonment by the assistant session judge. He however managed to get an acquittal by 24 September in the sessions court, merely on technical grounds.

Though Brinkman confirmed to have fled India on 26 October last year also due to negligent attitude of immigration authorities at the Delhi airport, it is still not known whether Sabire has also managed to flee. S B Faria, the public prosecutor, has now requested the court to issue a non-bailable warrant against him.

Sabire was also arrested by the CBI at the New Delhi airport in 1998 while in transit to Nepal. He was one of the accused in the infamous Peats case probed by the CBI. After booking him for having committed several unnatural sexual offences with the orphan children, he was remanded to judicial custody pending trial of the case.

His plea to grant him conditional bail was however later accepted by the sessions court, thereby releasing him on 23 June last year while directing him to report to the CBI's Panaji office on every alternate day. The reporting place was then changed to Calangute police station in North Goa by the court.

The interesting part of it is that the Calangute PI Goltekar informed his higher ups about his non-reporting only on 29 March – almost after 33 days – after which the matter was reported to the Delhi CBI. Based on this, the CBI counsel Faria then sought a compliance report on 4 April from Calangute police, confirming that Sabire was absconding and that he was never staying at the place he had mentioned.

"I have sought an explanation from my Calangute police inspector for the delay. But what else can I do than reporting the matter to the court as well as the CBI ? ", asks North Goa SP Davesh Srivastav. He has however instructed Calangute police to search him in the coastal belt.

While it is still not known whether Sabire too has managed to flee the country, the role of Calangute police comes under suspicion since Brinkman had managed to buy time to flee the country as his matter was reported to the higher ups almost 56 days after the latter was acquitted by the court. He had managed to flee within 33 days, even before his acquittal could be challenged.

Child Rights in Goa, an NGO, has demanded immediate suspension of PI Goltekar, who has ultimately been responsible for indirectly helping two paedophiles to escape from the police net. "His overall conduct is deeply suspicious", states the letter the CRG has written to the state chief minister.

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