The police have solved the horrific murder case of a five-year-old child at the hostel of a residential school in Bihar’s Jehanabad earlier this week. A guard at the school’s canteen has confessed to the crime, police said. He had allegedly sexually abused the boy and then slit his throat.
A sharp blade used in the murder has been recovered by the police, and the guard, Mukesh alias Sudama, 46, has been arrested. The hostel’s operator, Tarun Kumar, had also been taken into custody earlier.
During the inquiry, it was found that Mukesh’s wife had left him years ago. “The children at the hostel used to taunt him by calling him ‘impotent’, and this frustrated him,” said Superintendent of Police Aprajit Lohan. “The accused also had a dispute with the hostel operator and threatened to defame the hostel and force its closure,” he added.
46
The age of the guard who confessed to the crime
Death penalty held off in 2024 POCSO case
Another case that has gained national attentionas the Supreme Court stayed the execution of Atul Nihale. The development of the 2024 POCSO came in March.
A 5-year-old girl from Bhopal’s Shahjahanabad area was brutally sexually assaulted and dumped in a water tank. Bhopal’s Special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) delivered a landmark verdict on March 18, 2025. Accused Atul Nihale was given a triple death sentence — the first such verdict in Madhya Pradesh under the new Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria stayed the death sentence awarded to Atul Nihale while hearing his appeal challenging the conviction imposed on him by the trial court.
The horrifying data says a lot
The latest NCRB data on total POCSO cases is of 2023 with 67,694 cases registered. In 2025 according to a report by Centre for Legal Action and Behaviour Change (C-LAB) for Children, an initiative by India Child Protection. There is an 18.6 per cent rise in POCSO cases filed in India in the past two years.
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