Many kids with whom Briton chatted are from NAB centre
SHOCKING Police rope in counsellors, try to find if anyone of them were sexually assaulted
Investigation into the sexual assault case allegedly involving a British man at a home run by the National Association for the Blind (NAB) has revealed that of the 27 children with whom Murray Dennis Ward allegedly had “objectionable” chats, about a dozen were from the centre, police said.
RP Upadhyay, joint commissioner of police (south-eastern range), told Hindustan Times that these included the three children allegedly sexually assaulted by 54-year-old Ward on Saturday.
The messages on Ward’s phone were analysed to establish the identities of each of these children whom he allegedly had such chats.
“A dozen mobile numbers on which such chats and messages were exchanged were being used by children at the NAB home, said the joint CP.
The police have also established the identities of some more children who are from Delhi and allegedly had phone chats with the Briton. Some of their parents have been alerted.
Police told these parents that professionals will counsel their children. Interactive sessions with child psychologists will be arranged for these children.
“Our objective behind such sessions is to know how these children came in contact with Ward and if they were also violated by him like the three visually impaired children of the NAB home,” said an investigator. Ward was produced before a city court on Wednesday after his two-day police remand was over. The court sent him to Tihar jail.
On Wednesday, seven counsellors from the Delhi state legal services authority (DSLSA), roped in by the Delhi Police, counselled the children at the blind resource centre. Their focus was on obtaining information about Ward’s activities. The counsellors will soon prepare a report and hand it over to the police.
“We will examine the report to know if more children at the centre were sexually assaulted by the British man. We need to establish if any of these children had complained to the management earlier,” said the officer.
Ward, meanwhile, has maintained that he did not abuse any children. “When we told him that his act was recorded in a mobile phone, he insisted that the person in the video was someone else. We had to pause the video and show him his face. He then turned his face away,” said an interrogator.
The police questioned a young man who lived with Ward at his rented home in Vasant Kunj Enclave.
To the local residents, Ward would introduce the youth as his adopted son, but police said the man was his caretaker.
“Ward’s left hand remains partially paralysed because of which he needed a caretaker. We questioned the youth to know if Ward had abused him too, but he has denied it,” said a senior police officer.