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WORLD  Maria Schmidova Case INDIA, Oct 18 (VNN) — Ex-Iskcon devotees arrested in Puri On July 3, 2000, it was reported that Mangala Devi Dasi or Maria Schmidova (29), an Austrian woman who had been living in Puri with a local youth Ashok Sahu on a tourist visa since March, lodged an FIR with the police on June 29 alleging that Sahu and some friends had engaged in multiple rapes of her six-year-old daughter, Tulasi. She alleged that the youths had raped her daughter over the past couple of months. The police said Sahu had absconded and that a criminal case had been lodged against the alleged rapists. On August 21, 2000, the Crime Branch (CB) of the Orissan State Police in Puri arrested two former Iskcon devotees, both foreign nationals, on charges of gang rape. The arrested persons were Mandali Bhadra (43) alias Esposito Matteo, an Italian national, and Bhakta Das (50) alias William George Benedict of the USA. They were produced before local Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate, Ramesh Chandra Swain who remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days, the police said. Their tourist visas have been seized. Police said Matteo, who had come to Puri as a tourist, had married a local girl from a family of servitors and was planning to have Indian citizenship. Initially, the Puri Police took no action because it seemed that they thought that Mangala Devi Dasi (Maria Schmidova) was mentally disturbed. At that point, considering the seriousness of the complaint, Mayapurchandra was advised to go to the Cuttack High Court for anticipatory bail, but he seemed pretty confident that the police could do nothing to him. He did not pursue the matter and did not move to the Orissa High Court for anticipatory bail. Maria Schmidova pursued the matter with her consulate and embassy and the Austrian Embassy made a formal complaint to the Indian Government. The Government requested that the matter be investigated by the Crime Branch. The Crime Branch in Cuttack took up the matter. After preliminary investigation, they arrested Mandali Bhadra, Bhakta Das and Ashok Sahoo. They also interrogated Mayapurchandra, but did not arrest him. On September 30, the Director General of Police of Orissa issued an order under section 164 that the minor girl (Tulasi) be forwarded for examination by a magistrate. After the examination, on testimony of the minor girl before the magistrate, the magistrate issued an arrest warrant for Mayapurchandra (who it seems was accused by the minor girl). Bhakta Das's name was also included in the accusation by the young girl. Mayapurchandra was arrested the same morning. The various consulates involved sent representatives but found that there was nothing they could do. It seems that they did not seem particularly interested as all the accused have some criminal antecedents in their countries of origin. It appears that Bhakta Das was very recently under police investigation for selling illegal drug mixing chemicals in the USA. The FBI busted his warehouse in Badger recently and arrested his workers. Since all of the accused have also been named by the minor girl during her interrogation before a magistrate, the situation is pretty serious. It is unlikely that the court will issue bail since an accusation by a minor under a magistrate's interrogation is considered to be a very serious matter. A full case diary has not yet been produced by the Crime Branch before the Cuttack High Court. http://www.netguruindia.com/news/Jul00/04/NAT4.html http://www.orissasambad.com/230800/news04.htm http://www.tribuneindia.com/20000823/nation.htm  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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