Banda, U.P (Gurpreet Singh): A special POCSO court in Banda, Uttar Pradesh, has delivered a decisive verdict by sentencing a former junior engineer of the Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the systematic sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys. The ruling, handed down on Friday, addresses a decade-long period of abuse between 2010 and 2020, during which the couple targeted children as young as three years old. In a stern judicial rebuke, the court categorized the duo’s actions as falling within the “rarest of rare” category, citing the unparalleled depravity and the organized nature of their criminal conduct.
The convicts, identified as Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati, were found guilty under various stringent provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The charges proved against them included aggravated penetrative sexual assault, the creation and storage of child pornography, and the dissemination of such illicit material over the internet. This legal conclusion follows an intensive investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which first booked Bhawan in October 2020 after the scale of the exploitation came to light.
Beyond the capital punishment, the court has mandated significant financial restitution for the survivors of these crimes. The Uttar Pradesh government has been directed to provide ₹10 lakh in compensation to each of the 33 victims involved in the case. Furthermore, the presiding judge ordered that any cash previously seized from the couple’s residence by investigators be distributed equally among the victims. This comprehensive sentencing reflects the judiciary’s intent to provide both a maximal deterrent and a measure of support for those impacted by the convicts’ decade of systemic abuse.
