Newsroom24x7 Desk

Pune: An officer blonging to the elite Indian Administration Service (IAS), MH Sawant has been arrested in a shocking and bizzare case of sexual exploitation of minor girls in Pune, Maharashtra

The accused officer, arrested today, was currently holding the post of Director General of the Maharashtra Council of Agricultural Education and Research (MCAER). Sawant has been charged of sexually molesting and raping young 8 to 10 year old girls from the shanties near his apartment in the Sinhagad area here. The officer otehrwise lives in Shivaji Nagar locality of Pune.

The charge against Sawant is that he used to call the poor girls to the basement of his building on teh pretxt of giving them sweets and food and then used to show them obscene pictures and molest them. One of the girls has even accused him of raping her. The matter came to light after one of the victims told her teacher about what the IAS officer was doing to them.

Sawant is a promotee IAS officer. He was inducted into the Maharashtra cadre in 1998. He has held the posts of Deputy Secretary Sports, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Tribal Development and Commissioner Persons with disabilities department.

Sawant is an M.Com, LL.B. He underwent training for Community Mobilisation and Participatory Management at the Uttarakhand Academy of Administration at Nainital and has attended the Leadership Development Programme at Indian Institute of Management at Indore. He also did a course recently on “Improving Governance through Accountability” at National Academy of Audit & Accounts at Shimla