KATHMANDU, MARCH 31
A team from the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police arrested an American national on the charge of paedophilia in Pokhara yesterday.
The arrested has been identified as Michael Norman Taylor, 66, a resident of California, US. He was arrested from a Homestay located at Pame in Pokhara Metropolitan City.
The court had issued a warrant for his arrest.
Taylor, as per the CIB, was in the high priority watch list, as they had some information about him as well as informal complaints against him had been received from people stating that he might be involved in abusing young children, especially, those from under-privileged social background.
Taylor had visited Nepal in 2018 from October 27 to November 18, and again in 2019 from April 14 to 28. Police had received a couple of informal complaints against Taylor in 2019 saying he had sexually abused minor boys. But without a proper complaint against him, police were not able to arrest him then.
Normally, Nepal police try to arrest the paedophile offenders red-handed as it becomes very difficult for them to get information from young boys and their parents against foreigners.
It is often found that such criminals provide money and other support in abundance to children with poor family background.
This time, the CIB had been keeping a close eye on Taylor' activities ever since he landed in the country on March 21. Plainclothes cops were deployed around the place where he was staying as they had received information that Taylor was luring young children and taking them to secluded places such as parks with the motive of sexually abusing them.
While the CIB was keeping an eye on him, at least three child victims and their families filed FIR against Taylor accusing him of sexually abusing them during his visit to Nepal in 2019. With the FIR in hand and permission from the court he was immediately arrested the same day.
Superintendent of Police Ganga Panta of CIB said, "As soon as we confirmed that the man's motive was to molest children, and was targeting new children. We acted swiftly and nabbed him."
The CIB has also claimed that it had strong evidence to prove that Taylor had been in constant touch with the children even when he was in the US.
The number of foreign paedophiles in the country has significantly increased in the last few years.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 1, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
