The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday arrested a senior scientist at the National Jalma Institute for Leprosy and Other Mycobacterial Diseases in Agra for allegedly attempting to rape a six-year-old, the Hindustan Times reported. The child is the daughter of one of the accused’s junior colleagues.

A News18 report claimed that the accused had allegedly raped the child and another girl over a period of two months on the campus.

Police identified the accused as 58-year-old Vishnu Dutt Sharma, who is the head of the institute’s department of microbiology. “The matter was reported to the Tajganj police on Tuesday morning and facts narrated in the complaint were verified and found to be true,” said Superintendent of Police (City) Kunwar Anupam Singh. “A case was registered against Sharma under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.”

In a complaint to the police, the girl’s mother said she saw the accused attempting to rape her daughter on the terrace of the institute’s residential wing.