A man in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut allegedly sexually assaulted dozens of children and young adults in a village and filmed the act to blackmail them afterwards for money, police said on Tuesday.

A First Information Report (FIR) has been filed against the 37-year-old man man who ran a grocery store in the village. The FIR names six victims, four of them are minors.

The accused targetted children who came to the store to buy goods, police said. He would offer the victims drinks laced with intoxicants, sexually abuse them and film the act. He then used the videos to blackmail the children and extort money from them by threatening to make the videos public.

“One day I had gone to buy something from his shops. He offered me a cold drink. I fainted after drinking it. After I woke up, I was in pain. I told my mother about the pain after a few days. He was demanding money from me,” one of the victims told NDTV.

NDTV also talked to the families of the victims who said that the sexual assault has severely traumatised them. “My son has stopped eating or drinking. He has gone quiet, he does not talk to anyone,” the mother of one of the victims said.

Another man said his son ran away from home after the abuse and has refused to return.

“He is not even talking to us on the phone. He complains of headaches since the incident,” he said.

The families claim the victims were shamed by the accused after the abuse to stop them from reporting the crime. “We came to know about what had happened only when the police came to our home. My son had borrowed for Rs 3,000 a few days ago without telling us the reason. Now I know that he gave the money to that man,” a victim’s mother said.

Angry parents are demanding severe punishment for the accused who has been missing since the case was filed on August 19. Police say they have been searching for him but have not been able to locate him yet.

Police say the accused was sexually abusing children for a long time but the villagers got to know about it only after a video of his assaulting a victim went viral on social media.

“An FIR was filed immediately after the matter came to light. We have also provided counseling to the children. Their statement will also be recorded. We are conducting raids at several location to catch the accused. He will be arrested soon,” senior police officer Kamlesh Bahadur said.

The Kailash Satyarthi Foundation has also taken cognisance of the matter and said that it will fight for the victims. “Our foundation is going to fight the legal battle against the accused and demand justice for the children,” Rakesh Sengar, Executive Director, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation said.

The FIR has been registered for unnatural sex, criminal intimidation and sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.