Calcutta : A suspected pedophile has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody, when a 14 year old boy complained of molestation. The sessions court on Saturday (Nov 28) remanded an American citizen in custody for 14 days over allegations he molested a teenaged boy in his hotel room, police said.

The 51-year-old US national was produced before a sessions court in Calcutta (Kolkata,) capital of West Bengal state, where a case was initiated against him under India’s stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

“He was produced before a sessions court today (Saturday). He has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days,” Mr Debashis Dhar, an additional police deputy commissioner, reports AFP.

Chief public prosecutor Manjit Singh confirmed the remand. Officials at the US consulate were not immediately available for comment.

The accused, who had come to India on a tourist visa, was arrested on Friday (Nov 27) after hotel authorities lodged a complaint.

Investigators said the man had befriended the boy, 14, on Facebook before coming to Calcutta.

“In the city,  he met the boy near the hotel, took him to a shopping mall to gift him football boots and a sports bag and then asked him to accompany to his hotel room,” Mr Dhar said. Hotel security manager Joydip Palit said the boy had alleged that the man ‘forced him to perform a sexual act’ in the hotel room and was handed a 100-rupee (S$2.10) note when he protested.

A conviction could result in a jail term of up to seven years, along with a fine.

  children, crime, naked truth