Chennai : The city police within four hours on Friday morning made public three ghastly sexual crimes against minor girls, the most appalling of which took place over a year and left the 12-year-old survivor in the maternity ward of a hospital expecting to give birth within a day or two.

The perpetrator, a 37-year-old autorickshaw driver with daughters aged two and four, coerced the Class 8 student into silence by threatening to kill her mother, investigator said. The girl is under observation at Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital.

The child, a resident of Mogappair, was so terrified of M Perumal that she told her mother nothing till Thursday evening, when the abdominal pain she had endured for months became too severe for her to conceal.

The mother, a single parent, took the girl to the hospital,where doctors found that she was pregnant, an investigating officer said.

“The girl confirmed that Perumal, a neighbour, would summon her to his house and rape her when her mother was away at work,” he said. “Perumal admitted during interrogation that he had known the girl since she was a toddler. She would play near his house with other children from the neighbourhood.”

A team led by Thirumangalam all-women police inspector Malliga arrested Perumal on a complaint by the girl’s mother and booked him under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) Act.

“The girl was unsuspecting and continued to go play with her friends near Perumal’s house after she attained puberty”, the officer said. “Perumal would wait for his wife Ammu and their daughters to go out — most of the time while they were at church — to force the girl to come to his house, where he raped her. The girl’s mother, a daily wage worker,was away from home through the day and returned only late at night.”

When Perumal’s wife learned of her husband’s crime, she When Perumal’s wife learned of her husband’s crime, she approached police officers and requested that they bring the full force of law to bear upon him, he said.

A magistrate’s court in the city on Friday remanded Perumal in judicial custody.