Irfan, who earns a living by pushing carts in the Shastri Nagar area here, had allegedly kidnapped the children (aged between six and nine) on the pretext of buying them ice-cream yesterday, they said.
He had befriended the boys while they were playing outside their houses in the Adarsh Nagar here, police said.
"He brought them to a public park in Kotwali area by bus and tried to sodomise one of them around 10:30 pm. But the other two children managed to run away and draw the attention of a passerby," a senior police official said.
The argument caught the attention of two policemen who were patrolling nearby and as Irfan could not give satisfactory answers to their queries, he was taken to police station.
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At the station, he broke down and confessed to have "kidnapped" the children with "bad intentions", police said, adding he had been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
His interrogation, however, did not reveal involvement in any such crimes in the past, police said.
The police official said that North West Delhi Police were contacted to verify if the children had been reported missing by their parents, but they claimed no such information had been received by them.