A SPECIAL court in UP’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former junior engineer of the State’s Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys -- some as young as three -- over a decade, officials said. The POCSO court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” and held Ram Bhavan and his wife Durgawati guilty of systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020. The duo circulated over two lakh objectionable videos and photographs of the victims to nearly 47 countries via the internet. The couple was convicted under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act by the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (POCSO) Pradeep Kumar Mishra.

 

They were found guilty of offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using a child for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, and abettment and criminal conspiracy, Special Public Prosecutor Saurabh Singh said. The court directed the Uttar Pradesh Government to pay Rs 10 lakh in compensation to each of the 33 victims. “The court further ordered to distribute the cash amount seized from the house of the accused among the victims in equal proportion,” the CBI said. During the probe, it was found that Ram Bhavan, a resident of Naraini town in Banda district, had been living in a rented room in Chitrakoot district where the offences were committed, with his wife allegedly assisting him, the agency said.

 

The prosecutor said court records indicated that the accused lured and threatened the minors over several years, subjecting them to physical and mental abuse. The objectionable material was allegedly used for blackmail and other criminal activities. The court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” based on “unparalleled depravity and systemic nature of their crimes”. “Such offences not only destroy the lives of children but also shake the moral foundation of society. Any leniency in such cases would send a dangerous message,” the court said. “The sheer scale of this victimisation across multiple districts, combined with the extreme moral turpitude of the convicts, marks this as a crime of such an exceptional and heinous nature that it leaves no room for reformation, necessitating the ultimate judicial deterrent to meet the ends of justice,” it said.