GUWAHATI
The Gauhati High Court on July 21 ordered the authorities concerned to process the cancellation of bail granted to a 33-year-old man accused of raping and sexually abusing 21 schoolchildren, including six boys, of a government-run residential school in Arunachal Pradesh.
The High Court had on Thursday taken up the case suo-motu.
Yumken Bagra, the accused, who was the hostel warden of the school in the Shi-Yomi district, had allegedly preyed on 21 children, aged 6-14 years, between 2014 and 2022. He was arrested in the State’s capital Itanagar in November 2022, but a special court granted him bail.
The Special Investigating Team of the Arunachal Pradesh police filed a chargesheet against the accused a few days ago and said it would appeal to the judiciary for the initiation of a trial against him.
Hearing the case, Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta, a perusal of the chargesheet containing brief references to the statements of the victims, reflected that the accused forced the children staying as boarders in the hostel to watch pornographic movies and repeatedly subjected them to sexual assault.
“The medical reports of most of the victims corroborate the fact that they were sexually assaulted as marks of violence were noticed on their private parts,” the court observed.
Asking the authorities concerned to issue the notice of bail cancellation to the accused from Tadin village in the West Siang district, the High Court observed that the special court dealing with cases related to the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act had granted him bail “in an absolutely casual manner” and by assigning “absolutely flimsy reasons”.
The High Court further said that “there is an emergent need of sensitising the special judges posted in the POCSO courts” in view of the “tenor of the order” passed in Bagra’s case.
“Thus, the Director, Judicial Academy, Assam shall forthwith initiate the process for training and sensitising of all judicial officers dealing with POCSO Act cases in the States of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh,” the High Court order read.
The High Court has listed the case for hearing on July 27.
