Delhi police have arrested a serial pedophile who sexually abused an estimated 500 children he mostly targeted walking alone after school over the course of the past 12 years.
While in police custody for sexually assaulting two girls, aged 9 and 10 years old, Sunil Rastogi admitted to the litany of sexual attacks on children – and claimed to have attempted assaulting many other minors during the period.
“He seems to be mentally sick as he has some very weird notions. He is very superstitious and said he came by Sampark Kranti Express only and cancelled his visit if he missed the train,” Deputy Police Commissioner Omvir Singh Bishnoi said in a press conference.
Rastogi was arrested and jailed for six months in 2006 for raping a minor, according to the Times of India, but his crimes continued unchecked by police years after his release.
“How many girls he victimized will be clear once we complete the questioning and verify all his claims,” Omvir Singh said.
Rastogi, 38, lived outside Rudrapur, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, but would regularly make the five-hour train journey to Delhi to commit the sexual attacks, a police statement said.
"A team led by sub-inspector Sandeep from New Ashok Nagar police station was tasked to track him down thereafter and he was arrested from a hideout near the Kondli village," Omvir Singh said of the police manhunt.
The man is a father of five with two daughters and police will question the girls’ mother to ascertain whether they too were victims of sexual assault.
“During questioning, he admitted to his involvement in various other cases in the area of New Ashok Nagar, Ghaziabad and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand,” the deputy commissioner added, alluding to the fact that the full scope of the investigation has yet to be established.
India is home to one fifth of the world’s children and has the highest rates of child sexual assault in the world.