Hostel warden accused of sexually assaulting 21 kids in Arunachal Pradesh

GUWAHATI: A hostel warden of a government residential school in Arunachal Pradesh was found to have allegedly sexually assaulted six boys and 15 girls, six of who were also raped, between 2019 and 2022.
These children, who were under his care in the hostel of the school at Karo in Shi-Yomi district, were aged between six and 14 years. Yumken Bagra (33), the warden, allegedly committed the series of crimes.Arunachal Pradesh superintendent of police (SIT) Rohit Rajbir Singh revealed this before the media at the state police headquarters in Itanagar on Wednesday. He said four of the victims even attempted suicide.
“Bagra is currently out on bail granted by the special court at Yupia. We are tracking his movements and informing the district superintendents of police about it as we do not want him to repeat his crimes anywhere else. We are hoping that the court will begin his trial soon,” Singh said.
“We want to give justice to all victims of this serious heinous offence. Out of these 21 victims, six children were victims of aggravated penetrative sexual assault continuously. Other male and female students got sexually assaulted by the accused in different manners,” the SP said.
The SIT came to know about Bagra’s crimes after starting the investigation into a single compliant of sexual assault filed by the parents of two sisters in November 1 last year at Monigong police station in Shi-Yomi district. Bagra then absconded but 13 days later, he was arrested at Papu Nallah area near Naharlagun.
“We could have filed the chargesheet on the complaint and the statement of the sisters and charge the arrested accused but our intention was to give justice to all the victims and find more victims who are silent and not coming forward,”' Singh said. He added that during investigation since November, “we found more victims who came forward to file compliants. We got evidence too.” The SP said the victims stated how the warden would show them porn clips. “We have recovered pornographic videos from the accused’s phones,” the SP added.
Bagra was working in the school from 2014 to 2022 as a warden and police suspect that there could be more victims of his assault. The SP appealed to all the victims of Bagra to come forward and promised them that their identities will remain confidential. “We believe in this long tenure of eight years, this accused had assaulted many more children as we got complaints from 2019 to 2022 batch students only,” the SP said. The SIT also arrested one O Pertin on charges of harbouring Bagra while he was on the run. But he is also out on bail.