Rajshahi police arrest child molester following tip-off from US agency

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Police in Rajshahi has arrested a child molester following information provided by a US agency. The arrested individual, Mo Abdul Wakel, 33, works as a teacher and has been accused of sexually abusing children at his coaching center.

As per police reports, Abdul Wakel has been accused of sexually assaulting 30 schoolchildren under the age of 10 in Rajshahi city. He allegedly stored videos of the assaults on mobile phones, computers, external hard disks, and pen drives.

Later, various organizations, including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, provided information about child abusers from these digital devices to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The NCMEC then relayed this information to the CID in Bangladesh. Acting on this intelligence, Wakel was arrested from the Danshmari area of Rajshahi city on Saturday (May 18).

A press release from the CID revealed that numerous victimized students and their guardians have provided chilling information regarding Abdul Wakel's child abuse.

From the preliminary investigation, CID said, Abdul Wakel is a teacher at Ashraf Memorial Model School in Katakhali area of Rajshahi. During his student days, he used to teach in a coaching center in his area. There, he lured children with chocolates and mobile phone games to perform perverted sex acts and filmed them. All the children who were sexually abused were his students.

The headmaster of Ashraf Memorial Model School has lodged a complaint against Abdul Wakel at the Paltan Model Police Station in the capital, citing violations of the Penal Code and the Pornography Control Act.