Orissa police file charges in paedophilia case

Bhubaneswar, Jan 12 (IANS) Police have filed charges against an Australian doctor accused of sexually abusing 11 boys in an orphanage in Orissa's Puri town, officials said Monday.

Alan Herbert Rose alias Paul Allen, 65 who worked as a volunteer medical consultant at the orphanage in Puri, 56 km from the state capital, was arrested Nov 12, 2008 after Mary Ellen, the French founder of the orphanage, lodged a complaint with the police Nov 5.

Rose is in judicial custody after local courts rejected his bail plea.

'We have filed a charge-sheet against Rose after gathering sufficient evidence,' Debi Prasad Dash, the inspector in charge of Puri Sadar police station, told IANS.

'The charge-sheet was filed in the court of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate at Puri late Saturday,' he said, alleging that Rose was sexually abusing the orphans.

Mary Ellen Gerber Foundation, a non-profit organisation, runs a number of orphanages in India and abroad. Police said Rose was looking after the children in orphanages run by the foundation in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

'He belongs to Bunbury in West Australia and came to India in 2001. He abused the orphan boys aged 14-18 here over the past five years,' Dash added.

The police official said Rose had also been arrested on similar charges in Andhra Pradesh some years ago. 'He does not have valid legal documents for his stay in India,' the police officer said, adding that if convicted, the Australian doctor may face life imprisonment.