A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former junior irrigation department engineer and his wife to death for sexually exploiting 33 minor children – some as young as three years old – over a decade, officials said.
The POCSO court described the crimes as “the rarest of rare cases” and convicted Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati for systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020 and producing child sexual abuse material.
They said they convicted the duo under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act and sentenced them to death on charges including aggravated sexual assault, use of a child for pornographic purposes, storing child pornography, abetment and criminal conspiracy.
The court also ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to pay, the CBI said in a statement $10,000 compensation for each of the 33 victims.
The agency added, “The court also ordered that the amount of cash seized from the accused’s house be distributed equally among the victims.”
The court described the crimes as “the rarest of rare cases” on the basis of their unparalleled corruption and the systematic nature of their crimes.
Ram Bhawan was booked by the CBI on October 31, 2020 along with other accused on charges of child sexual assault. Use of children for pornographic purposes; and creating and disseminating child sexual abuse material online.
