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This is an archive article published on April 6, 2003

Bitter chocolate

WHAT do you do in the hotel?We play games, gora baba and gori bai take photographs and show us films.What kind of films?On their machine.Do ...

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WHAT do you do in the hotel?
We play games, gora baba and gori bai take photographs and show us films.
What kind of films?
On their machine.
Do you like the films?
(Silence.)
— a nine-year-old girl’s police statement

Wilhelm Albin Marty paid exquisite attention to detail.

His planner contained neat lists of names of little girls to be picked up daily between December 12 to 29, 2000. For each day except Christmas Day.

He booked a double room (Number 108) at The Resort, Malad, for ‘‘two adults and two children’’, though the couple flew in solo on separate days from Burglen, Switzerland.

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And since street kids can’t pad around barefoot in a five-star hotel, the greying couple crammed their overnight bags with kiddie sandals. They also carried T-shirts, undergarments, swimming costumes, stockings, all for girls below the age of 10. Not forgetting teddy bears, dolls, chocolates and nuts to make the the hired-car trips around Colaba and the Gateway of India worthwhile. And for themselves, they carried lots of condoms, sprays and a medicine kit.

When personnel of the social service branch of the Mumbai police and at least two witnesses used a duplicate key to raid the first floor room around 4 pm on December 16, 2000, the sauve general manager of a pharmaceutical company was not alone. The police and witnesses claim Wilhelm was in bed, naked, with two cowering girls aged eight and nine. Loshiar Lili Marie Marty, his 56-year-old wife, ‘‘was standing nude, her back to the door, camera in hand’’. Seconds after the police entry, Wilhelm pulled out a strip of white paper from under a pillow and chewed it until they forced him to spit it out.

Also in the room was the Martys’ black laptop. Clicks on icons with user-friendly names like GAMES, IND99, IND00, THAI98 and THAI99 revealed girlie porn pictures and one-minute blue flicks on Photoshop.

THE LAW
A Small Price to Pay

All the above facts, say the police and child activists, are true. It’s just a bundle of lies, say the Martys. ‘‘The witnesses lied. They were tutored by the police. The porn print-outs were doctored,’’ says defence lawyer Francis Saldanha (see box).

But on March 29, two years after the daylight raid and two months after charges were framed against the Martys, the police won the day when a sessions court sentenced the couple to seven years RI and a total fine of Rs 16,000. But the story doesn’t end there because the police left many questions unanswered. And while the investigation and speedy trial may set precedents, India continues to slumber on legislation for child sexual abuse.

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‘‘We were under immense pressure since we were raiding the room of a foreigner, protected by so many laws, only on the basis of a tip-off. What if we had found nothing?’’ asks sub-inspector Nandkumar Gopale. ‘‘The child witnesses’ statements proved the charges of unnatural lust and kidnapping.’’

Remarkably, none of the 21 witnesses in the case turned hostile. The child victims confessed that the fair uncle-aunty would lure them into their car with generous gifts of chocolates, toys and clothes. Then they would take them to a hotel ‘‘very far away,’’ where they would watch films on a laptop and do as the couple bid, communicating mostly through gestures.

‘‘It was traumatic. I would recoil on seeing the photographs in court. The youngest girl in the photos was just five. One girl present on the day of the raid was in pictures dating back to 1999,’’ one witness told this reporter. A prime witness claims that some photographs presented as evidence show the couple striking poses as well. ‘‘In many photos the couple were nude and semi-nude. Even colour photocopies were gruesome to identify.’’

The child specialist who questioned the victims reports, with reference to one case, that ‘‘the interview clearly suggests that the foreign couple kidnapped her, took her to a hotel and exploited her sexually which produced a state of extreme embarrassment and shock in her, making her uncomfortable to discuss it.’’

It was the child witnesses’ statements that clinched the case for the police. ‘All I told them was not to be afraid,’ says investigating officer Kharpude

But it was the children’s statements that clinched the case for the prosecution. ‘‘All I ever told them was not to be afraid. Their statements formed the basis of the conviction,’’ says investigating officer inspector Prahlad Kharpude. ‘‘The testimony of two drivers who drove the Martys around Mumbai in 1999 and 2000 also helped us tremendously.’’

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No matter how effective their case was, the police would be the first to admit that it wasn’t exactly thorough. For instance, though the Martys’ laptop had photographs of girls from Sri Lanka and Thailand as well, they did not explore that angle at all. ‘‘This was our first experience with the crime of child sexual abuse, and so much computer evidence and such young child witnesses,’’ offers Kharpude.

Nor can the police explain how (and for how much) porn filmed in India was peddled to global websites. Also, the couple’s passports show entries for India since 1989 — the December trip was their second visit to Mumbai in 2000 — and the police know that they also travelled to Goa, but their investigation was limited to 1999-00 and Mumbai.

In the end, it proved to be enough. The Martys attempted to get bail thrice and never made it. They now plan to appeal in High Court.

Once the appeal period is over, 19 dolls, two teddy bears and two toy radios will find their way to the Dongri remand home for children.

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