GUWAHATI: A Pocso court in Arunachal Pradesh Thursday sentenced to death a former hostel warden of a government residential school in the state for aggravated sexual assault on 21 children on his watch – 13 girls and eight boys in the age group 6-15 – between 2019 and 2022.
Ex-warden Yumken Bagra‘s co-convicts in the case, former headmaster Singtung Yorpen and Hindi teacher Marbom Ngomdir Tapir, were handed 20-year jail terms.Two other accused, Daniel Pertin and Tajung Yorpen, were acquitted.
Four of the survivors had attempted suicide after being targeted by the warden. Yorpen and Tapir were convicted and sentenced for failure to report or record a case under Pocso Act. The children purportedly suffered sexual abuse in silence until a pair of sisters confided to their parents in Nov 2022 about being assaulted by Bagra. An FIR was lodged at a police station in Shi-Yomi district, leading to Bagra’s arrest.
When a district court accepted the ex-warden’s plea for bail in July last year, Gauhati HC took suo motu cognisance and quashed the order. He has been in custody since. The other two convicts, Yorpen and Tapir, were arrested after Thursday’s verdict. While cancelling Bagra’s bail, HC cited details of the crime in the chargesheet to establish why it was necessary to keep him in custody till the completion of the trial.
“A perusal of the chargesheet, which contains brief references to the statements of the victims, reflects that the accused warden forced the children staying as boarders in the hostel to watch pornographic movies and repeatedly subjected them to sexual assault.”
“Medical reports of most victims corroborates the fact that they were sexually assaulted,” court said. The Pocso court’s judgment will be sent to Gauhati HC for confirmation.
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