Eight-year horror at Arunachal school as warden sexually abused at least 21 children; court sentences him to death

Later, 19 other children – some former students of the school and some still enrolled there at the time – gave statements to the police about the sexual abuse that they faced from him. Two other teachers from the school – Marbom  Ngomdir, who taught Hindi, and Singtung Yorpen, the headmaster – were convicted for abetting the offences and not reporting them.

Bagra was charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for rape and sexual assault and sections of the IPC for poisoning and criminal intimidation. The other two teachers were charged for criminal intimidation and aiding the commission of offences under the POCSO Act.

According to Oyam Binggep, the advocate who represented the children and their families, all the victims were from poor families. Of statements of four parents recorded in the police’s chargesheet, two said that their children had told them about facing sexual assault from the warden but that they had not believed them, thinking that they were “making excuses for not studying further”. The mother of a 14-year-old victim is recorded as not having believed her son because “such things do not happen in their knowledge”.

Eight years after Bagra took charge as the hostel warden, the father of twin girls filed a police complaint on November 1, 2022, accusing him of sexually assaulting, harassing, molesting and attempting to rape his daughters on multiple occasion.

According to the chargesheet filed by police in the court, he told the police that his daughters told him about the abuse to explain why they never wanted to go back to the school, and that “they will commit suicide by hanging” if they were made to go back. As more children went on to give their statements during the investigation, police recorded six of them as saying that they had attempted suicide because of their experiences.

The case was handed over to an SIT on November 24, 2022, and 22 children went on to be examined, of whom 21, both boys and girls, gave accounts of varying degrees of abuse, from harassment to rape, which was meted out to them in the warden’s room between 2014 and 2022.

The chargesheet recorded similar details recurring in the statements of the children: being made to dance in their underwear; being made to watch pornography; being made to massage Bagra; and being made to consume medicines which made them sleepy and then waking up naked or dishevelled and in pain. Multiple children also told police that they had been threatened against telling anyone about his activities, and had been beaten.

During the investigation, six female children underwent medical examination. Two bottles of cough syrup and tablets were seized from the warden’s room and pornographic photos and videos were found in his phone.

Calling the POCSO court’s judgement a “landmark one that carries the potential to profoundly influence the psyche of the entire state and its citizens”, the SIT’s then Superintendent of Police Rohit Rajbir Singh said, “This ruling not only addresses the immediate issue at hand but also serves as a critical turning point for the broader societal awareness surrounding the protection of children, reinforcing the collective responsibility to safeguard their rights and welfare.”

The three convicts can approach the High Court to appeal against their conviction and sentencing.