The ringleader of an Asian grooming gang is still living in the town where he committed his horrific crimes – almost a decade after he was released from jail and told he would be deported.
Qari Abdul Rauf is walking around Rochdale ‘like he owns the place’ according to his shocked neighbours, who cannot understand why he has not yet been kicked out of the country.
MailOnline can reveal the 55-year-old has been working for a takeaway delivery app, prompting fears he might meet one of his victims during the course of his work.
He is among nine members of the Rochdale grooming gang who were jailed for raping and trafficking young children across England in 2012.
Rauf was told he would be deported to Pakistan in 2014 after serving two and half years of a six-year prison sentence.
The presence of the former taxi driver in the town where he carried out his crimes adds fuel to the fire over demands that the Government hold a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal.
Keir Starmer is embroiled in a bitter war of words with Elon Musk, who used his X platform to launch a war of words against the Prime Minister saying he had failed to prosecute the gangs when he was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Prime Minister was accused of ‘smearing’ those who have demanded another inquiry into the rape of thousands of young girls by predominantly Pakistani men by calling them ‘Far Right’.
Qari Abdul Rauf is walking around Rochdale ‘like he owns the place’ according to his shocked neighbours, who cannot understand why he has not yet been kicked out of the country
The criminal was told he would be deported to Pakistan in 2014 after serving two and half years of a six-year prison sentence
He also accused the Tories, who have backed calls for a new inquiry, of jumping on the bandwagon of campaigners to gain attention.
Musk, a close confidante of the new US President Donald Trump and the world’s richest man, had also called Jess Philips, the safeguarding minister, a ‘ rape genocide apologist’ for rejecting a call for an inquiry into grooming gangs in Oldham.
Much to the anger of campaigners, Ms Phillips instructed Oldham Council in October to launch its own inquiry into sexual exploitation in the town similar to inquiries set up in Rochdale and Telford.
A multi-year national inquiry into child sexual abuse gave its recommendations to the previous government in 2022.
Rauf, who was stripped of his UK citizenship, was told he would be sent back to Pakistan following his release in November 2014.
Immigration Tribunal judges have twice rejected his appeal against deportation in 2020 and 2022.
His lawyers have argued he is ‘stateless’ having renounced his Pakistani citizenship and deportation would breach his right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Yet still Rauf remains. His neighbours in Rochdale are disgusted that he is still allowed to live in the same town where he carried out his vile crimes.
One disgusted mother, who lives just a few doors away, said: ‘Nobody can believe that monster is still here, after what he did to those young girls.
Rauf with three other members of the Rochdale grooming gang, Shabir Ahmed (top left), Adil Khan (top right) and Abdul Aziz (bottom left)
‘It’s disgusting. What is the country coming to? Why is he still here?
‘He was living in that house when he was offending, my kids used to go around and play with his kids.
‘Then I saw the police taking his computer away, I saw it on the news, and I was like ‘Oh God, you stay away now kids’.
‘He walks backwards and forwards down the street without a care in the world, past children and everything.
‘He was delivering for a takeaway app last year. He had the sign on the side of his car.
‘I can’t believe he was delivering takeaways to peoples’ houses, just imagine it – you are one of his victims and you open the door to get your meal and he’s there.
‘What if he popped up on the doorstep of a girl he abused?’
The neighbour said it was known among others on the street that his two daughters went to Pakistan to get married, but Rauf did not go.
Rauf’s neighbours in Rochdale (pictured) are disgusted that he is still allowed to live in the same town where he carried out his vile crime
‘He stayed here. His daughters got wed over there and then came back, but their husbands didn’t come back with them,’ said the neighbour.’
Another resident said: ‘My daughters were young when he was committing those horrendous acts against those other young girls.
‘My two daughters used to go into his house to play with his girls, when they were also little.
‘He should not be back in that house, this street. He should not be in this country. Why has he not been kicked out?’
Another neighbour said: ‘I see him walking around like he owns the place. There are kids all around here and nobody wants that paedophile around here.’
Other members of the Rochdale gang have also successfully avoided being deported.
Aldi Khan, 54, has also used the ECHR to avoid being deported while fellow convict Abdul Aziz, known in the rape gang as ‘The Master’, also managed to avoid being deported following his release from jail.
He also abandoned his Pakistani citizenship but was told by the Home Office he could stay.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
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