A father of five, a serial paedophile was arrested for sexually assaulting hundreds of schoolgirls over 14 years. The 38-year-old tailor, Sunil Rastogi was detained on Saturday from his hideout from east Delhi’s Kondli village.
A team of officers arrested him on basis of three sexual assaults on young girls since December. He allegedly targeted the girls aged between 7 and 11 years. According to Delhi police, he confessed his crime and he told the police he had committed the crime every fortnight.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police (East), Omvir Singh Bishnoi said, “He mainly targeted those girls whose parents did not accompany them on their way to school or home and then took them with himself on different pretexts, always looking for a secluded place to sexually assault them.”
The paedophile admitted he preyed on young girls and enjoyed it for his sexual satisfaction.
The investigation revealed he committed his first crime in 2004. The locals beat him for physically assaulting a neighbour’s daughter. They forced him and his family to leave the area, Mayur Vihar.
In 2006, Rastogi was jailed in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand but six months later he got bail.
Recently, three cases were registered in east Delhi’s New Ashok Nagar; one on December 13 and two others on January 12. In these three cases, he targeted girls aged between 7 and 10 years.
Omvir Singh told, “In the first case, he told the girl that her father had sent him to pick her up. He then took her to an isolated under-construction building, where he sexually assaulted her.”
CCTV camera on the building’s premises captured the man. When the police were trying to find out who the criminal is, the man was trying to assault a second girl.
Rastogi tried to abduct a 10-year-old girl on January 12 outside a government school where the girl studies. When the girl cried for help, the man fled.
Then his next stop was another government school. The second girl too raised an alarm and he fled from the spot.
Police detected a pattern and suspected in all these cases same the man was involved. With the help of technical surveillance and the versions of the victims’ police then identified Rastogi.
Further investigation disclosed Rastogi was a school drop out and has been charged with drugs, theft and molestation in various areas.
Rastogi belongs to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family. He has three daughters and two sons. His daughters are being counselled and the investigators are trying to find out whether they were targeted too.
