Teacher arrested for raping minor student

JIND: Police have arrested a teacher for allegedly raping a minor student in a village near here. Enraged over the crime and a subsequent bid to keep the matter under wraps, villagers thrashed the accused teacher and school principal and locked them in a room on Thursday.
The villagers also manhandled the cops when police rushed to the school and tried to free the teacher and principal.
As per police complaint, the accused teacher, identified as Rajender Singh, 37, had lured the 15-year-old girl, a student of class IX, to accompany him on the pretext of some work and took her to a nearby poultry farm and raped her at pistol point in the first week of April.
The girl got frightened and did not disclose the incident to anyone.
But the teacher, who teaches social studies in government secondary school situated in the village, forced the girl to accompany him to the farm on three more occasions.
However, the girl's mother got suspicious when she returned home late on Monday as she looked visibly shaken.
When her mother coaxed her to reveal if there was anything wrong with her, the girl revealed the incident to the mother, who reached the school the next day and complained to school principal Sadhu Ram about the incident.
But the school principal, instead of taking action against the teacher and report the matter to police, formed a committee of three teachers and assured the victim's mother that the committee would probe the matter before taking any action.
However, the woman finally revealed the incident to other villagers, who reached the school on Thursday morning and thrashed the accused teacher as well as the principal over inaction.
When Uchana police station SHO Gurdayal Singh and other cops reached the school on getting information, angry villagers manhandled them as well but police managed to release the teacher and principal.
Raj Kumar, a villager, said that it was a serious incident but the school authorities tried to hush up the matter. "The school staff must be transferred from the village and only women staff should be posted as there have been complaints of teasing of girls by certain male staff members earlier also".
When contacted, Jind district education officer Dilbag Singh Malik said that the accused teacher had been suspended and handed over to police.
"A departmental inquiry has been initiated against him and the principal, who delayed action in the case. The principal should have immediately informed higher authorities and called police," the DEO stated.
Narwana DSP Tahir Hussain told TOI that police had registered a case under section 376 (rape), 354 (outraging modesty of a woman), 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC and relevant sections of POSCO Act against the accused teacher and arrested him.
The DSP added that they were also inquiring into the role of principal in shielding the accused.