Serial rapist, wanted for 13 years, arrested in Delhi; paedophile admits he sexually assaulted 500 girls

The serial rapist, identified as Sunil Rastogi, had been targeting girls walking home from school for last 13 years.

Updated: January 16, 2017 11:56 AM IST

By Aadil Ikram Zaki Iqbal

Serial rapist, wanted for 13 years, arrested in Delhi; paedophile admits he sexually assaulted 500 girls

New Delhi, Jan 16: A serial rapist, who sexually assaulted hundreds of girls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, was arrested by Delhi Police. The serial rapist, identified as Sunil Rastogi, had been targeting girls walking home from school for last 13 years. The 38-year-old Sunil Rastogi, a tailor by profession, has reportedly admitted that he sexually abused around 500 girls. According to Delhi Police, the paedophile, Sunil Rastogi, claimed to have attempted assault on more than 2,500 minors.

Delhi Police nabbed serial rapist Sunil Rastogi for allegedly raping two minors and molesting another in New Ashok Nagar. During interrogation, Sunil Rastogi admitted to his involvement in various other cases of secual assault in the area of New Ashok Nagar, Ghaziabad and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. Rastogi admitted that he has been committing the crimes since 2004.

Who is Sunil Rastogi?

Sunil Rastogi had come to Delhi in 1990 with his parents and started helping his father at a tailoring shop. Rastogi, who hails from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, was known to be a sexual deviant. In 2004, he and his family were beaten up by locals and forced to leave Mayur Vihar after he had tried to assault a neighbour’s daughter. Rastogi, who has five children, two of them girls, was also was jailed for six months in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, for an offence in 2006.

The hunt:

Sunil Rastogi used to come to Delhi by the Sampark Kranti Express only on odd dates in search of prey. Rastogi would wear the same set of clothes — a red jacket and a pair of blue jeans, when he would go out for hunt. He considered his red jacket his lucky charm. He believed he would never get caught if he abused girls wearing his red jacket. Rastogi lured girls between the age of 7 and 11, who were returning from tuition classes or schools, with chocolates. He raped them at isolated place and then returned to home. He did it for 13 years.

The arrest:

In 2013, the Delhi Police received two complaints of two minor girls being molested in a strikingly similar fashion. The victims told the police that the man who assaulted them wore a red jacket and lured them with the promise of new clothes. The investigators examined the CCTV footage from the area where Rastogi had allegedly assaulted the girls, but they didn’t find much clues to identify him. With the help of the victims and vendors and shopkeepers of the area, Delhi Police made suspect’s sketch and initiated a door to door search. However all the efforts went in vain.

The police accessed the jail papers from across north India, which had the details of both convicts and under-trials and a list of around 100 suspects. “We matched the sketch that we had with their photos or sketches and zeroed-in-on three suspects. We took their addresses from the papers and took the probe forward,” a police source was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.

“After sustained efforts we were able to isolate Rastogi. Our network of informers also told us that he was seen in the area thrice in the past one week and also that he would be visiting Delhi again on Saturday. Following the input, a trap was laid and he was apprehended,” the source added.

According to the Delhi Police, Sunil Rastogi seems to be mentally sick. A special investigations team has been set up that will look for other victims since the police suspect that most some his crimes went unreported.

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