‘Horror dad’ gets bail, still in police custody

THANE - Unemployed Francis Gomes, who allegedly held his wife and three daughters captive for seven years, was granted bail by a court after being remanded in 14 days judicial custody Thursday. But he was sent back to police custody for failing to pay the bail amount.

Arrested Wednesday, Gomes has been charged under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code. The women were kept like prisoners inside a housing society flat whose windows were sealed to cut off sunlight.

Vasai Sessions Court judge R. Chikane granted him bail in the afternoon. Gomes has promised to provide the bail surety of Rs.15,000 by Monday after which he will be released.

His wife Theresa Gomes, 55, daughters Elizabeth, 27, Barbara, 22, and a 21-year old daughter whose identity is being kept secret on medical grounds have been shifted to Sir J.J. Hospital in Mumbai for treatment. They appeared dazed when they were rescued.

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

According to social worker R. Gopalakrishnan, an activist with NGO Anand Rehabilitation Centre and 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 neighbours suspected something was wrong, most people kept mum saying it was Gomes’ “personal matter”.

When the NGO activists, some 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. Soiled clothes were lying around, food was rotting away and there was dirt all around. Even the windows of the flat had been boarded up and sealed by Gomes to deny the victims sunlight. The women 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 three daughters to school. After they finished their education, he locked them up in the flat,” said journalist Ram Parmar of a Mumbai daily which scooped the story.

Parmar said that after his arrest, Gomes appeared subdued and remorseful.