The Bhandup police on Sunday arrested a 50-year-old autorickshaw driver for allegedly raping a nine-year-old boy. The autorickshaw driver had been dropping the 9-year-old to school every day for over six years.
According to Hindustan Time, the incident took place on November 11 during Diwali vacations, when the accused called the victim’s father and told him to send the boy to his place to pick up some Diwali sweets. The boy’s parents did not suspect anything, as the driver had been dropping the boy to school for years. Later, the boy’s older sister dropped him off at the driver’s house and returned. But as the boy did not return home for more than an hour, his mother got worried and decided to pick him up. But while she was on her way, she saw the boy crying walking home.
When she asked him what happened, he only managed to say that the driver was a bad man. Later, when she further inquired, he narrated the entire incident to her — how the driver attacked him and took him to a side room and sodomised him. The accused had also threatened the boy not to tell anyone about the incident. Later that evening, the boy’s parents confronted the driver at his home, but the accused started abusing them and said that the boy was lying, after which they approached the police and registered a complaint.
The police arrested the accused under section 377 (unnatural offences), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, along with 4 (penetrative sexual assault), section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault), 12 (sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).