Moscow, July 22 (IANS) Over 200 residents in a Russian city kept the house of a suspected paedophile under siege for six hours early Friday following a report that he sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl, RIA Novosti reported.
The mother of the girl had reported the incident Thursday and investigators were conducting a search in the suspect's house in Blagoveshchensk city when a lynch mob surrounded the building and started demanding "fair justice".
"Investigators attempted to move the suspect out of the house, but the crowd wouldn't let them do it. They had to call in riot police," said Alexei Lubinsky, a senior regional police official.
The negotiations between police and residents continued for almost six hours and ended in a deadlock. Police had to disguise the suspect as one of their own to sneak him out of the house for further questioning.
According to preliminary investigations, the suspect had Tuesday lured two girls to the riverbank where he sexually abused one of them.
"The man threatened the girl and attempted to strangle her," Lubinsky said.
The Russian authorities have long declared a fight against sexual abuses of minors, but its results seem to have been insignificant. Activists claim that police are often slow to respond to allegations of child abuse, and in some cases even ignore reports.
Over 9,500 sexual crimes against children were committed in Russia in 2009 alone, including over 960 rapes.