NEW DELHI: In a late-night operation on Saturday, a 20-year-old man was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor in central Delhi’s Ranjeet Nagar.
The crime was reported on Friday morning. The child’s father told TOI that she had gone with her friends to a langar. “My daughter returned home carrying some food items. She again went outside to play, but this time she came back after a long time,” he added.
“When she started changing her clothes, her mother noticed bloodstains on her clothes. My wife called me after which we took her to a hospital where she told us that an uncle gave her Rs 10, took her to an isolated place on the pretext of purchasing books and sweets and then sexually assaulted her,” said the 32-year-old father. He added that she had talked to him in the morning and said that she was all right.
Joint commissioner (central range) Suman Goyal reviewed the case and a team of AATS, special staff and cops from Ranjit Nagar police station was formed to probe the crime. “We also roped in teams from the North district and Crime Branch,” said an officer.
The investigators first thought that the accused may be a resident of Ranjit Nagar. “We scanned footage of 100 CCTV cameras and finally located him in one such video. We extracted his photo from the footage and started a manhunt,” the officer said.
The teams searched more than 100 houses and factories, but couldn’t find the accused. Photographs of the suspect were shown to hundreds of residents, but no one knew about him. The cops also conducted searches in North and West districts, but got no information. Police then realised that he was not a resident of central Delhi.
An informer finally confirmed that the accused was a resident of west Delhi. The team reached his house in Raghubir Nagar, but he had left for Peeragarhi bus stand by then. “We came to know that he was a vendor who sold utensils and also visited Rajasthan for the same purpose,” said police.
The team of AATS and special staff (central) reached Peeragarhi bus stand where they came to know that in the last half an hour four buses had left for Rajasthan. The cops started chasing the buses in five vehicles. “We stopped one bus in Bahadurgarh and carried out a thorough search, but he was not in it. The second bus was stopped at Rohtak and the third near a stadium, but to no avail. Finally, he was caught sleeping in the fourth bus that was stopped at Kalanaur. The accused had changed his clothes. The entire effort took us three hours,” said an investigator.
DCP (Central) Shweta Chauhan said the accused was identified as Suraj. He was earlier arrested for molesting a child in Khyala. When interrogated for the reason behind committing such an act, he told police, “Mujhe bachche pasand hain (I like children). I’m also obsessed with them.”
Suraj further claimed that before targeting the girl, he had tried to lure two more children, but they escaped from his clutches. Police are trying to verify this information. Asked whether he was a paedophile, police said it was too early to say anything.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)
