New Delhi: The police have arrested a 38-year-old man on the charge of sexually assaulting schoolgirls in New Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area.
DCP (east) Omvir Singh identified the accused as Sunil Rastogi.
"The accused told the police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find minor girls returning home from school, he used to mislead them by telling that their father had sent some clothes or some other articles. He would then take the hapless children to an isolated place," the officer said.
The accused, a tailor, is married with five children, including three girls, said another officer. His daughters were being counseled to know whether he had abused them.
On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were registered at the New Ashok Nagar police station. The complainants said a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9.
The accused allegedly took them to the stairs of a building and fled when they raised an alarm, he said.
On December 13 also, a case under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) was registered on the statement of a minor girl, said the officer.
He said since all the three cases were of a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were on.
"In all the three cases, victims were minors in the age group of 9-10 and it was also revealed that the accused misled the minors in a similar fashion and then took them to an isolated place where he allegedly molested them," the officer said.
A team led by ACP (Kalyanpuri) Rahul Alwal and inspector inspector CR Meena, SHO, New Ashok Nagar police station, took up the investigation.
During interrogation, the accused confessed to the crime and said he had committed similar offenses in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), said the officer.
Police said the accused had cases registered against him under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad.
Rastogi is a permanent resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004.
"He resides in Rudrapur now. He studied up to fifth standard at government school in his village. He is being interrogated regarding other offenses committed by him at different places," added the officer.