Delhi serial child rapist shows we can't hide the rot anymore

Exactly how to talk about the sexual perversion involving alleged serial child rape by the 38-year-old Sunil Rastogi? By his own account, he molested and/or raped over 60 minor girls, but if his daily visits to Delhi by train from Uttar Pradesh's Rampur are anything to go by, the count might be much higher.

Rastogi, a tailor by profession, could have abused thousands of minor girls, since his confession reeks of more lies. Since his arrest on Saturday last, the number of potential victims has soared. Police claim that he had allegedly issued threats and regularly blackmailed his victims, saying there would be dire consequences if they lodged complaints with the cops about the sexual abuse they faced from him.

Not only is this blatant and extreme predatory behaviour, the coupling of serial sexual violence with habitual paedophilia makes this a class apart in its shameless and terrifying horror. Targeting of schoolgirls - young, impressionable and absolutely vulnerable - by Rastogi leaves little doubt in our minds that Rastogi's sexual violence had nothing but rampant misogyny and unfathomable perversion of the mind behind its casual, blatant and repetitive serial crime.

That his arrest has come after a 10-year-old girl managed to escape the building in which he had confined her and recounted her ordeal to the cops, only scrapes the tip of the iceberg. Rastogi had misled many a schoolgirl on her way home under the pretext of giving her the clothes that had been supposedly ordered by family members, and had raped them subsequently.

This lurid tale of serial horror only goes on to confirm that such tales lurk in open sight, exist and practically flaunt themselves, daring us to challenge them. Sexual discrimination and violence is such a part and parcel of women's lives in India that it practically goes unnoticed unless in a metropolis like Bangalore and particularly in its posh quarters.

Despite the hue and cry post December 16, 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Sing/Nirbhaya, and despite having a spruced up anti-rape law in place, little has changed on the ground. In fact, there's a rash of sexual violence that has broken out all over the country, with no corner deemed safe for women any more.

However, Sunil Rastogi's must be put in a whole new category altogether for its brazen and unimaginable violence at adolescent girls, barely in their teens. We must set a precedent by fast-tracking his case and ensuring that some kind of justice is finally brought to the unsuspecting and innocent victims of Rastogi's disgusting sexual predation. 

Also read: How I was sexually assaulted by my best friend