For a decade, Ram Bhawan ran his child-porn operation from unremarkable surroundings — a rented room in Chitrakoot, a posting as a junior engineer in the state’s irrigation department, an ordinary life that gave no outward signal of what he was doing to the kids around him. Some of the victims, all boys under 18, were as young as three years of age.
Ram Bhawan and his wife made a staggering 2 lakh videos involving dozens of victims, the prosecution said in their trial that concluded this week. A special court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in Banda, Uttar Pradesh, sentenced this man and his wife, Durgawati, to death on Friday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which investigated the case from late 2020, provided a detailed public account of how the couple worked.
How couple lured, threatened kids
“Ram Bhawan used to apply different forms of modus operandi on children, including access to online video games and giving money or gifts to allure them,” a CBI spokesperson said.
The targets were boys from Banda and Chitrakoot districts and surrounding areas; drawn in by what appeared to be small acts of generosity before being abused and filmed. Ram Bhavan also promised them “mobile phones, chocolates, and watches”, the prosecution said.
With photos and videos, he then threatened them for many years, according to special public prosecutor Saurabh Singh.
Ram Bhawan and Durgawati remained active in the general area of Banda-Chitrakoot between 2010 and 2020.
The CBI was assisted by the Interpol, the global police collective that found three mobile numbers linked to sale of porn on the dark web.
Victims still suffering
During the probe, it was found that Ram Bhawan, a resident of Naraini town in Banda district, had been living in a rented room in Chitrakoot district where the offences were committed, with his wife allegedly assisting him and even threatening the families of the minors into silence or compromise.
The CBI’s account of what took place in that rented room was stark. “During the investigation of the case, it surfaced that the accused persons had committed various forms of perversity, including aggravated penetrative sexual assaults against 33 male children, some of them as young as three years of age,” a CBI official said. Some reports said the victims were more than 50. At least 25 testified among the 74 witnesses.
“Some of them have remained admitted in the hospital. A few of the victims developed a squint eye. Victims are still suffering from psychological trauma caused by the predators,” the officer added.
Recording the abuse was not incidental or perverse alone; it was a commercial enterprise for the couple. The CBI established that Ram Bhawan built a systematic digital operation to sell what he filmed. Investigators had been monitoring child sexual abuse material circulating on the internet when they identified content linked to the couple.
Staggering numbers reveal scale of depravity
The duo circulated over 2 lakh objectionable videos and photographs of the victims to nearly 47 countries via the internet, the prosecution said. A pen drive recovered during the investigation contained 34 explicit videos and 679 images. The couple had used multiple mobile numbers and email IDs to upload, share and sell material across social media platforms, websites and the dark web. Forensic examination of their electronic devices established a clear digital trail, news agency PTI reported.
The CBI has exchanged information with foreign agencies who also identified buyers and recipients of the material, cementing the case that began in a rented room in semi-urban Uttar Pradesh.
The couple were convicted under the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act for offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using children for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, abetment and criminal conspiracy.
The trial began in June 2023. In its 163-page judgment, the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Pradeep Kumar Mishra applied the “rarest of rare” doctrine.
“The sheer scale of this victimisation across multiple districts, combined with the extreme moral turpitude of the convicts, marks this as a crime of such an exceptional and heinous nature that it leaves no room for reformation, necessitating the ultimate judicial deterrent to meet the ends of justice,” the court held.
The UP government has been directed to pay ₹10 lakh in compensation to each of the 33 victims. The cash seized from the couple’s home is to be distributed among the victims in equal proportion.