Hostel warden accused of rape, surrenders before court in Arunachal

ITANAGAR: A hostel warden of a government residential school in Arunachal Pradesh, who is accused of committing heinous crimes against 21 children for eight long years, surrendered before a POSCO court here on Monday. Yumken Bagra, the hostel warden of the school at Karo village in Shi-Yomi district, surrendered before the court of Justice Jaweplu Chai, special judge POSCO, after his bail granted on February 23 by a lower court was suo motu cancelled by Gauhati High Court. The accused appeared personally in the court along with his counsel Karyom Dabi.

"The accused has been remanded to judicial custody in Jully jail for 14 days," the court said in its order. The Gauhati High Court had on July 21 suo motu cancelled the bail granted to the accused by the trial court. The HC said, "The conscience of the court has been shaken by the way in which a case of such grave magnitude and sensitive nature has been dealt with in an absolutely cavalier fashion by granting bail to the main accused without assigning any plausible reasons." It added, “The larger issue which bothers the mind of the court is regarding safety of the victims of the ghastly act of sexual assault after the release of the accused on bail." Bagra’s involvement in the heinous crime first came to light after there was a complaint that he had sexually assaulted two twin sisters inside the hostel.

ALSO READ| Class 10 student gangraped, pushed off school terrace in UP's Ayodhya, dies; 3 booked

A case was registered in Tato, the headquarters town of Shiyomi district, where the initial investigation took place in November last year. Later, the case was transferred to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Arunachal Pradesh police, headed by DSP Muir Basar Kamdak, police spokesman Rohit Rajbir Singh said. "The accused worked as a warden in the school from 2014 to 2022. There may be more victims of his assault, but a thorough investigation by the two sisters who filed the complaint has now revealed 21 victims," Singh said. Of these 21 victims, 6 children were subjected to sexual assaults. Other students were subjected to sexual abuse by the accused in different ways, he said.

ALSO READ| Class 5 student studying at MCD-run school gangraped by peon, his associates; Case registered

The spokesperson added that police recovered the obscene videos from the phones of the accused. "We are sure that the accused has assaulted many more children in these 8 years as we have received complaints from students of 2019 to 2022 batches only. The accused was arrested after a lot of hiding and even one of his accomplices O Pertin, who helped him hide, was also arrested under the act of harboring a criminal. However, the accused managed to get bail from a trial court here," Singh said. A chargesheet has been filed against him under Section 376 AB of the POCSO Act.