The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Pastor A. Gideon Jacob, founder of Mose Ministries Home for Children in Tiruchi.
Mr. Jacob has been evading arrest ever since a case against him was registered for running the unregistered home for girls in August 2015. A lookout notice was issued against him. The pastor was reportedly arrested in Chennai on Friday night soon after he arrived from Germany, sources said.
A CBI team brought him by road from Chennai and produced him before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Tiruchi on Saturday, who remanded him to 15 days judicial custody. Mr. Jacob was then lodged in Tiruchi Central Prison.
Several Sections
He has been booked under Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 361 (kidnapping and unlawful guardianship), 368 (concealing and confinement of kidnapped or abducted persons), 201 (causing disappearance of evidences of offence), 340 (wrongful confinement), 370 (buying or disposing any person as a slave) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a few other sections of Juvenile Justice Act.
The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court had ordered the CBI to probe the affairs of the unregistered home run by Mr. Jacob, where 89 girls, mostly minors, were staying.
The Mose Ministries Home for Children had claimed that they were rescued from female infanticide in Andipatti and neighbouring villages since 1994 after they were abandoned by their parents.
The High Court had passed the order on a public interest litigation filed by an NGO that alleged that the girls were illegally kept in the home without the knowledge of their parents.
Following a High Court order DNA tests were conducted on 82 of them, who had attained the age of 18 years, and were allowed to decide their future.
