RETIRED UP MAN SEXUALLY ABUSED KIDS FOR 4 YRS

KANPUR : A retired revenue official arrested on Wednesday had been sexually exploiting children in Konch town of Jalaun district in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region for the past four years, the police said on Thursday.

In recent days, the 60-year-old Ram Bihari Rathore has been on a spree of buying medicines that claim to improve sexual stamina. A search late on Wednesday night by Jalaun police yielded two bags full of such medicines, the police said. The police, who have identified a total of 36 victims of Rathore through CCTV footage and 320 videos saved on his mobile phone, laptop and two pen drives, have spoken to eight of them.

Rathore, a well-connected man in Konch and a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionary, targeted children in his neighbourhood, using cold drinks, chips and candy to gain their trust. He would then invite children to his house where he would mildly sedate them and sexually abuse them, said an official.

“The children and their family members are being counselled. We want to build a foolproof case against Rathore,” Jalaun’s senior superintendent of police Dr Yashveer Singh said.

The children have told the police that Rathore blackmailed them with the videos. They were also forced to do menial jobs at his house besides being sexually abused, the police said.

“One child said that Rathore called them to his house in the morning and only allowed them to leave in the night,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity. Scared of Rathore, the children never spoke to their family about the abuse.

“We cried when he called us but we had to go to his house,” one child told the police, who now plan to seek Rathore’s remand in custody.