Teacher held for sexual assault on minor

The All Women Police Station (AWPS) at Thudiyalur in Coimbatore on Saturday arrested a teacher attached to a government-aided school in a rural area for alleged sexual assault on a minor girl in the staff room reportedly in December last year.

Though the teacher was arrested based on a complaint filed by the father of a class VI student, investigation by the All Women Police Station (AWPS), Thudiyalur, found that the accused had subjected at least seven other students to sexual abuse in the school.

According to the police, the 50-year-old teacher was arrested on Saturday afternoon.

He was the class teacher of class VII.

The girl first told her class leader about the incident. The class leader told her that she too was abused by the teacher. They reported the incident to the class teacher, who asked them to write a complaint and drop in the complaint box.

“Our investigation found that the school authorities reported the incident to officials with the Social Welfare Department and the School Education Department. Officials from both departments conducted an inquiry and six other students — two more from class VI and two each from VII and IX — raised similar complaints against the teacher. The eight students told us that each of them was made to write statement that they did not have any complaint against the teacher.

The school authorities also did not inform these incidents to the parents of the students,” said AWPS inspector M. Meenambigai.

Following the inquiry, the teacher called the class VI student who first raised the complainant to the staff room and allegedly threatened her that she would be given poor marks in examination.

As no action taken on the complaint, she reported the incident to her father and he lodged a complaint against the teacher, who was arrested under Sections 7 (Sexual assault) and 8 (Punishment for sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. He was produced before court and remanded in judicial custody.

When contacted, an official from the School Education Department said that an inquiry will be initiated into the incident on Monday. While accepting that the Department was informed about the incident, the official refused to comment on the alleged delay in initiating action against the teacher.

District Child Protection Officer R. Sundar said that he was not aware of the incident.