LUCKNOW: In an apalling, inhumane incident, the 40-year old principal of an autism care centre was arrested on Friday on charges of raping a 24-year old autistic woman entrusted in his care. The accused was nailed by DNA sampling, three months after the crime was first detected.The crime first came to light when the survivour was found to be 19 weeks’ pregnant during a routine medical examination. As she could not tell anything about the incident, police cracked the case after investigation and DNA sampling.The accused, identified as Khushal Singh (40), a resident of Aliganj, runs Samarpan Care Centre for mentally disabled and autistic people at his residence. A native of Nainital, Singh lives with his wife and two daughters.According to the FIR, the survivour Shikha (name changed), daughter of a citybased businessman, lives in an autism care and rehabilitation centre in Dehradun having boarding facility since past six years. She used to come to her home in Lucknow on vacations.When she came home last year in July, her parents admitted her to Singh’s care centre during her stay. She went back to Dehradun after vacations where during a medical check up in November, it surfaced that she was 19 weeks’ pregnant. Her family was informed and she was brought back to Lucknow.Her father told TOI, “The report of ultra sound done on November 22, 2018, showed that she had 19 weeks and one day old pregnancy. The calculation showed that she got pregnant during her stay in Lucknow from July 6 to 28. During this period, the only place she visited was the centre. This indicated that she was sexually assaulted at the centre.”On November 26, her father lodged a complaint with police stating that his daughter was sexually assaulted during her visit to the centre run by Khushal and his wife Durga. The family then got the survivour abort the child.CO Aliganj Deepak Kumar Singh said, “As the survivor was suffering from autism, she was unable to identify the person responsible for the crime. Police teams were sent to Dehradun but got no clue. Then we decided to go for DNA sampling. Blood samples of Singh and his two employees, a physiotherapist and a trainer, were taken and sent to Mahanagar forensic science lab along with the sample taken from the foetus. The report received this week showed that samples of Singh and foetus were matching.”SSP Lucknow Kalanidhi Naithani said, “It was one of its kind case because there were no clues initially. We solved it entirely through scientific investigation.”Singh’s wife Durga, however, has accused the police of framing him.

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