Indian Couple Sentenced to Death for Sexually Abusing 33 Boys and Selling Videos on Dark Web

A couple in Uttar Pradesh, India, has been sentenced to death for sexually abusing 33 boys and creating and selling videos of the abuse on the dark web.

Additional District Judge PK Mishra of Banda court categorized the incident as a 'rarest of rare crime' and handed down the death penalty to the accused, 50-year-old Ram Bhavan and 47-year-old Durgavati.

According to the Times of India, the Banda District Court delivered this verdict for cruelly torturing boys aged between three and ten over the past decade and selling their obscene pictures and videos across 47 countries via the 'dark web'.

The verdict stated, "The convicts have committed such a large and cruel crime spread across many districts that it cannot be imagined that they will reform and become good people in the future. Therefore, to give true justice to the victims and to prevent others in society from committing such crimes, they must be given the harshest possible punishment."

The court sentenced Ram Bhavan and his wife Durgavati to death under various offenses of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act, including unnatural offenses, aggravated penetrative sexual assault, use of children for obscene purposes, storage of obscene material related to children, abetment, and criminal conspiracy. The court also ordered the government to pay compensation of 1 million rupees to each victim.

The crime was uncovered after Interpol alerted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India that child sexual abuse material was being circulated on the dark web. The CBI registered the case and initiated an investigation on October 31, 2020.

During the investigation, a medical team from AIIMS hospital in Delhi examined 25 victimized boys. Based on the strong evidence obtained, the court sentenced the couple to death.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed a case in 2020 against the accused Ram Bhavan and other unknown individuals on charges of sexual abuse of children, use of children for obscene purposes, and creation and dissemination of child sexual abuse material on the internet.

The victim boys were subjected to brutal torture. Some required hospitalization due to severe injuries to their private parts, while others suffered permanent eye problems. According to the investigation report, Ram Bhavan, a former junior engineer in the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department, and his wife Durgavati ran this crime network in the Banda and Chitrakoot regions between 2010 and 2020.