‘Horror dad’ gets bail from court

THANE - An unemployed man, Francis Gomes, who had allegedly held his wife and three daughters captive for seven years in a flat here, was remanded in 14 days of judicial custody but was immediately granted bail by a court. He, however, was sent to lock-up as he failed to pay the bail amount.

Gomes, who was arrested Wednesday, had been charged under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code.

Vasai session court judge R. Chikane granted him bail later in the afternoon. Gomes has promised to provide the bail surety of Rs.15,000 by Monday when he will be released.

The family members - wife Theresa Gomes, 55, daughters, Elizabeth, 27, Barbara, 22, and 21-year old daughter, whose identity is being kept a secret on medical grounds - have been shifted to Sir J.J. Hospital in Mumbai for treatment.

The accused, who had taken voluntary retirement from a Mumbai company almost two decades ago, was nabbed after a neighbour spotted Gomes, hiding in some bushes near his home in Neelamba Society Wednesday.

According to social worker R. Gopalakrishnan, an activist with NGO Anand Rehabilitation Centre and the one who led the rescue efforts: He apprehended that if his daughters stepped out in the world, they would be raped. Daily he left home and locked up the door to convey an impression that he lived alone.

Though some residents of the housing complex suspected something was wrong, most people preferred to keep mum on grounds that it was Gomes “personal matter”.

When the NGO activists, some local residents and police barged into the flat they were horrified.

The small two-room flat had an unbearable stench of not being cleaned for years together, soiled clothes lying around, food rotting away and dirt all around. Even the windows of the flat had been boarded up and sealed by Gomes to deny the victims sunlight, they had never stepped out of the house in seven years, Gopalakrishnan told IANS.

Enquiries with neighbours revealed that he had become extremely possessive of his family when they shifted to Naigaon over seven years ago.

He did not allow them to watch television as he feared they would be morally corrupted by the love songs and movies. He personally escorted his 3 daughters to school and after they finished their education, he simply locked them up in the flat, said Thane correspondent Ram Parmar of a Mumbai daily which first exposed the issue.

Parmar said that after his arrest, Gomes appeared subdued and remorseful for his regressive actions that have shocked the people.