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Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim
A 71-year-old British national and a 63-year-old Goan were arrested on Monday on charges of sexually abusing three children.
Colin John Middleton, a Briton who has been visiting India for the last five years, was arrested at a guesthouse in Benaulim, a coastal village in south Goa.
He has been charged with sodomising two Nepalese boys aged between 13 and 14 years.
Middleton had come to Goa with the boys from Nepal eight days ago.
In another incident, Lawrence Fernandes, a 63-year-old retired government servant, was arrested just across the River Mandovi in Panjim for allegedly sodomising a 16-year-old contract labourer in his house.
After police acted on the boy's complaint and took Fernandes into custody, the old man admitted to having lured him with chocolates and money.
The boy from Orissa was part of a group of labourers working at Fernandes's house for over a week.
The police have also charged Fernandes with wrongful restraint and outraging modesty, besides sodomy.
Both Middleton and Fernandes were produced before judicial magistrates on Tuesday morning and remanded to police custody.
This is the third instance in Goa of paedophilic activities coming to light. The first major disclosure in 1991 was of the well-organised racket run by Englishman Freddy Peats.
Peats, who ran an orphanage, used to supply children to Western tourists visiting Goa. The 77-year-old was awarded life imprisonment in 1996.
Three of Peats's accomplices were arrested subsequently. While New Zealander Eoghan McBride is now undergoing trial in Goa, Frenchman Dominique Sabire jumped bail last year and fled the country.
Raymond Varley, the third accomplice, was reportedly arrested by Interpol last year in his hometown in the United Kingdom. But he has still not been brought to India. All the suspects are more than 60 years old.
The second major incident in the state was the arrest of a German national, Helmut Brinkmann, for child abuse in Calangute in north Goa.
Brinkmann also fled the country in October 1999, after his release by the district court, thanks to the negligent attitude of the state police as well as immigration authorities at Delhi airport.
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