Shimla, Feb 9 (IANS) A hostel warden was arrested Tuesday in Himachal Pradesh on charges of sexually exploiting nine poor tribal girls for more than a year, the police said.
“Pawan Goel was arrested this (Tuesday) evening for sexually exploiting nine girls of a hostel run by an NGO being funded by Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh (a national-level voluntary organisation),” Superintendent of Police Prem Kumar Thakur told IANS.

The victims, mainly from tribal districts in Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand, were students from class VII to X in a government high school at Solan, some 45 km from here.

Acting on the complaint of a 13-year-old girl from Kinnaur, police conducted raid on the hostel and arrested Goel, 48.

A case under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act (dealing with atrocities against the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) has been registered against him.

Thakur said the Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh is getting funding from the central government and is running 21 such hostels across the country.

This was the second such incident in the state in less than a year.

In March last year, three teachers, including a school principal, were arrested in Shimla on charges of sexually exploiting six deaf and dumb children of a school run by an NGO.