Rajasthan teacher held for molestation attempt on 17-year-old student, principal suspended

Kota (Rajasthan): A teacher in a government senior secondary school in a village here has been arrested for allegedly trying to molest a Class 12 girl, police said on Friday.

The accused was on Friday produced before a POCSO court that ordered to send him to under judicial custody, they said.

The government school in Julmi village under the Suket police station limits in Kota district, where the incident occurred, was earlier selected under the special category of 'Prime Minister Shree School'.

Meanwhile, state Education Minister Madan Dilawar took note of the incident and directed to issue suspension orders to the teacher. He also ordered suspension of the school principal for failing to take action in the matter in time.

The accused Ved Prakash Bairwa (32), was arrested in the case on Thursday after the 17-year-old female student lodged a complaint against the lecturer earlier in the day, SHO at Suket police station Raghuveer Singh said on Friday.

The minor alleged that the accused tried to force her for physical relations and forcibly held her hand on a few occasions, the SHO said, adding that the student had reported the matter to her class teacher and the principal.

When the girl's ordeal was not addressed by the school, she told her parents, who then reached the school on Thursday to discuss the matter but the principal and the accused teacher allegedly blasted on them and made them leave.

As the news about the incident spread, hundreds of angry villagers reached the school to protest, where the staff, noticing the mob, bolted themselves inside a room.

The angry villagers created a commotion on the school premises for around two-and-a-half hours, while the girl student reportedly waited with a garland of shoes outside.

On report about the commotion, the local police team rushed to the school and on noticing the mob in rage, called in additional force from two other police stations. The accused lecturer was then taken to the police station.    

Bairwa was arrested on Friday after being booked under section 74 (assault or use of criminal force on woman with intent to outage her modesty) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sections 11 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, SHO Singh said.

Thepolice on Friday produced the accused before a POCSO court that ordered to send him to judicial custody.

Bikaner director secondary education on Friday issued separate orders to suspend the accused teacher Bairwa and the principal Diwan Singh Rawat with immediate effect, Kota District education Officer (DEO) Krishan Kumar Sharma said.

In the departmental inquiry, the school principal was found guilty of negligence by taking no action despite the matter having been reported to him, Sharma added.