Fear and grief boiled over into anger when a mentor was caught while committing a crime never expected of him. An Australian Christian missionary was arrested by the police in Puri on charges of sexual exploitation of the little inmates of an orphanage home in the holy city.
The accused missionary Dr Poul Ellan was doing it, with about 40 children of the home, for last six months but it came to light on November 13 when the matter was somehow leaked to the warden of the orphanage. On a complaint from the warden, the local police arrested Dr Paul Ellan.
It never occurred to anybody in the Mary Ellen Berger (MEG) foundation home in Puri that a monster in the garb of a Christian missionary doctor was out to exploit the children sexually as and when he wanted to. However, on October 10 last when the co-founder of this trust Marry Ellen Gerber came back to Puri, she was informed by one of her staff members that Dr Poul was a paedophile.
Ellen informed the local police and lodged an FIR but by then the Christian missionary had fled from the home.
Quoting the complaint, the police said Christian missionary Paul had been working in the orphanage since its inception in 2002. Mary regularly visits orphanages, run by the foundation in Orissa as well as Andhra Pradesh, on inspection, they said.
However, police spread its net and Poul was apprehended from the MEG trust located in Vishakhapatnam and brought to Puri. Police registered a case under Section 376 under IPC and produced him in the court.
Christian missionary Dr Poul Ellan was a part and parcel of this home along with Marry Ellan which they had opened here in 2000 to ?look after the children rendered orphan in the Super cyclone that had struck Orissa on October 29, 1999?. But he was actually raping the minors.
Christian missionary Paul was staying in a guest house in the premises of the orphanage, housing 85 children, including 45 girls.
A doctor by discipline, 60 year old Christian missionary Poul Ellan was associated with this trust which has its branches in India and abroad as well. Besides Puri, MEG has its presence in Vishakhapatnam and Pondicherry where orphans are taken care of Poul'sact of paedophilia was not only limited to Puri but he was doing the same things in the MEG homes in Vishakhapatnam and Pondichery. In total, he had preyed on 40 dalit children of the three homes for his beastly libido.
Paul and some of the inmates were sent for medical examination.
(FOC)
