Making case against child-abusers

Here's a list of some of the cases of paedophilia reported from across the country.

Brutal babysitter

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He posed as a babysitter, and then raped the infant. For 35-year-old Ramkisan Surajmal Harijan, a resident of Chembur's Mankhurd-Ghatkopar Link Road, it was all too simple.

Last January 12, when he offered to babysit his 10-month-old target, the baby's parents didn't for a moment suspect his intentions. They handed the baby over to him for the night. He raped and sodomised her. The child has been in hospital ever since. She had to undergo an operation and is recovering, the police say. Ramkisan, meanwhile, is now in the custody of the Deonar police.

Urvi Jappi in Mumbai

Raped and killed in a toilet

The 'outsider' is not liked much in Assam. Yet, it was an out-of-town victim who made the state rally against local culprits.

Eight-year-old Barnali Deb had boarded a bus from Agartala in Tripura to Tuensang in Nagaland with her parents on July 11, 2002. The Debs decided to spend the next night at Network Tours and Travels' rest room in Guwahati. Here, watchman Bishnu Prasad Sinha took Barnali away and, along with his friends, gang-raped her in a toilet. Her body was retrieved from a septic tank. The Gauhati High Court has upheld the death sentence awarded to Sinha and an accomplice.

Rahul Karmakar in Guwahati

Murder in the woods

The December 17 rape and murder of Shamjetsabam Echal, a 10-year-old girl from Andro village in the Imphal East district, is still haunting the headlines in Manipur.

Echal had gone out in the morning to collect firewood. When she didn't return by late evening, the locals mounted a search and found her body in the forest. She had been stabbed. The police suspected rape, too. The government is yet to nab the culprits, even though the police have rounded up two suspects. Last week, two rallies were held in the state protesting the crime and demanding that the culprits be arrested within five days.

Sobhapati Samom in Imphal

In the guise of a teacher

Infamous for its high number of rape cases, Bihar is now waking up to the menace of paedophilia. Official statistics show more than 100 complaints of missing persons, mostly of young boys and girls, were lodged last year.

In one incident, a schoolteacher in Danapur on the outskirts of Patna was arrested after a student's parents complained in July 2006. Then last March, NK Singh, director of a residential school in Kankarbagh, was also arrested. Investigation revealed that he had lured his Class X victim on the pretext of filling up a form. The 16-year-old is still in trauma.

Ramashankar in Patna

Hostel of horrors

In March 2006, a sordid tale was reported from Orissa's Sundargarh district. Headmaster Ankul Hati of the Usura Colony Sevashrama School allegedly used to open a window of the girls' hostel in the night, wake up one of the girls and tell her to come to his house.

He used to beat the girls, mostly aged 9-11, on flimsy grounds the following day if they dared to defy the order. Out of fear and shame, the victims and their parents never lodged a complaint. The lid was blown when the mother of one victim complained. The matter was brought before the district inspector of schools and the collector.

Soumyajit Pattnaik in Puri

Killing them softly

The 350-odd victims of child abuse lodged at the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi, are living in trauma. Among them is a five-year-old who was raped by an Army constable. Her assailant, Govind Dubey, was her father's friend and had a daughter her age.

He took her for a bicycle ride on September 26, 2006, and raped her. Then on October 17, an eight-year old girl from Ranchi was offered chocolates and given a lift by two of her neighbours. They then raped her. And in Jamshedpur, a cricket coach was found abusing his students.

Prakash Kumar and Preeti Mehsehwari in Ranchi, Amit Tiwari in Jamshedpur