3-year-old sexually assaulted in Bengaluru

In what could up the anxiety of working parents, a three-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 46-year-old man at a daycare centre run by his wife in west Bengaluru under Jagjivanram Nagar police limits on Thursday.

The police have registered a case under several sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and have arrested the accused, Chainrup Baradia, who hails from Bikaner in Rajasthan and is a resident of Jagjivanram Nagar.

His wife Sandhya Baradia has been arrested for running the daycare centre from their home without permission from the authorities, the police said.

Both the accused and the victim have been subjected to medical examination to confirm the assault, the police said.

On Thursday evening, soon after the parents picked up the girl from the crèche, the three-year-old started complaining of stomach pain. When the parents rushed her to a private hospital near their house, the doctors told them that the girl could have been sexually assaulted.

The parents immediately lodged a complaint with the J.J. Nagar police, who arrested Chainrup and Sandhya, the police said.

The victim’s father, who is an autorickshaw driver, and the mother, who is a private company employee, left the child at the daycare centre from 10.30 am to 5.30 pm every day, the police said. The child was enrolled at the centre only recently. “The daycare centre too started functioning a few months ago. There is no information on how many children had been enrolled into the crèche. It did not have CCTV cameras on its premise as required by law,” the police said.

During counselling, the girl said that “The uncle hurt me with his fingers”, while her parents said that the three-year-old was bleeding from her private parts when they rushed her to the hospital. The police have recorded the statements of the girl and her parents.

Chainrup worked at a book shop in Gandhinagar, while his wife ran the daycare centre from their house, the police said.

Only recently, a four-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a dance teacher at a summer camp that was being held in a private school in Kempapura near Hebbal and the accused dance teacher Peter was arrested by the Amruthahalli police.