Bhandup: Rickshaw driver arrested for raping 9-yr-old boy

THE ACCUSED, WHO HAS BEEN DROPPING THE BOY TO SCHOOL FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS, INVITED THE BOY TO HIS HOME TO SHARE DIWALI SWEETS, AND RAPED HIM

MUMBAI: A 50-year-old autorickshaw driver was arrested on Sunday for raping a nine-yearold boy he had been dropping to school every day for over six years. While the man attacked the boy over the Diwali vacations, the boy’s parents registered a complaint only on Sunday, after which he was arrested. On November 11, the man called the boy’s father, said he wanted to share some Diwali sweets and asked him to send his son over to collect it, the Bhandup police said. The boy’s parents did not suspect anything, as the driver had been dropping the boy to school for years. “The driver called us twice, asking us to drop our son at his home,” the boy’s mother told the police.

The boy’s older sister dropped him off at the driver’s house and returned. However, the boy did not return for more than an hour. His mother got worried and decided to pick him up. “On the way, I saw my son crying and walking home. When I asked him what happened, all he managed to say is that the driver was a bad man,” the mother told the police. When she prodded her son further, he told her how the driver attacked him. The boy said he first exchanged sweets with the accused in the living room, where the driver’s mother was seated. The accused then took him to a side room and sodomised him. “He told me that the driver had threatened him if he told anyone about what had happened,” the mother told the police.

The same evening, the boy’s parents confronted the driver at his home, but he charged towards them and began abusing them. The parents said they left soon after but the driver followed them, saying the boy was lying. “We didn’t want the autorickshaw driver to attack another child, so we approached the police,” the mother’s complaint said.

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