YUPIA, 27 Jul: The bail cancellation hearing of Yumken Bagra, who is alleged to have sexually assaulted 21 schoolchildren, has been extended to 31 July.
The Gauhati High Court had taken up suo moto the case of sexual abuse of 21 students by Bagra – a warden of the government residential school in Karo village in Shi-Yomi district – between 2019 and 2022, on 20 July.
The accused was let out on bail, granted by the special court in Yupia.
The first hearing after the suo moto cognisance was on 21 July, and the second was held on Thursday, 27 July.
Meanwhile, the members of the Boh Ramo Bokar Welfare Society (BRBWS) staged a protest outside the Itanagar permanent bench of the Gauhati High Court here on Thursday, seeking justice for the 21 students who were sexually molested by Yumken Bagra.
The protesters demanded capital punishment for Bagra.
Joining the protest and expressing solidarity with the victims, All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union’s women’s wing president Ponung Darang said that she trusts that the judicial system will “punish the culprit under the law of the land.”
BRBWS general secretary Tachi Kochung demanded immediate trial of the accused, and expressed anger that “the accused, after committing such a heinous crime, is roaming freely.”
He appealed to the people of the state to “come forward in not supporting such crimes.”
The state was left shaken after horrific details of the abuse were made public by the SIT in a press conference on 19 July. Twenty-one children – 15 girls and six boys, aged 6 to 12 years (Class 1-5) – were sexually assaulted and molested by Bagra.
The SIT had reported that there were six cases of rape, nine cases of molestation, and six cases of sexual harassment.
