In a shocking news, a 38-year-old paedophile was arrested in Delhi for allegedly sexually assaulting minors. Sunil Rastogi, a tailor by profession, has even married with children, police said. (IE image)

A 38-year-old pervert tailor from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh raped or tried to rape 600 unsuspecting minor girls in three states until he was arrested by Delhi police on Sunday. The accused identified as Sunil Rastogi, a resident of Sharda Colony under Bilas Pur police station from district Rampur district in Uttar Pradesh, had recently sexually abused three minor girls in Delhi, according to police.

Here’s all we need to know about the accused, how he operated and why parents should be extra cautious about their minor children.

Recent cases against the accused

On December 13, 2016, Delhi police had registered a case under section 376/506 IPC and 6 POCSO Act on the basis of a statement of a girl child. On January 10, 2017, two more cases under section 363/365 of IPC were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station. The complainants alleged that a person misled their girl child aged 10 years and 9 years respectively and took them on the stair of a building and fled away when they cried, Delhi police said in a press release.

Modus operandi

Police found the accused used to first mislead unsuspecting minor girls to an isolated place on the pretext that their fathers had given some clothes or other articles for them. After taking the girls to isolated places, the accused used to rape or try to rape them. The accused told police that he used to target minor girls going to home from school alone.

How he was nabbed

Police examined the CCTV footage of the area in which the accused had committed his recent crimes and identified him. On January 14, police arrested the accused on the basis on a tip-off.

Previous crimes

Sunil Rastogi told police he had sexually abused several minor girls in past in New Ashok Nagar area of Delhi, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. Shockingly, several cases under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, molestation and theft were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. Yet he was operating free.

Indian Express reported Omvir Bishnoi, DCP East, as saying that the accused told police that he “tried to sexually assault 600 girls”.

According to an NDTV report, the accused sexually abused minor girls aged 7-10. He was also jailed for six months at Rudrapur in 2006

In 2004, the accused was attacked and forced to leave his home in east Delhi after he allegedly tried to abuse the daughter of a neighbour, NDTV reported.

Family and education of the accused

Sunil Rastogi is a permanent resident of district Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. He came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. Before the arrest, he was living in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. He had studied up to Class 5 in a government school in his village. A father of five, including two sons and three daughters, he is tailor by profession, police said.

Police are counselling daughters of the accused and trying to find out if they are also his victims.