Four held for damaging school property

PUNE: Nearly 20 to 30 relatives of Chetan Bhalerao who ended his life after being allegedly thrashed by a school principal and teachers on Tuesday ransacked and pelted stones at the school on Thursday afternoon. They also manhandled the two policemen who were posted at the school.
The Mundhwa police have arrested two persons, including a woman, and detained two minors for the alleged violence on the school's premises.Two of the accused have been identified as Kesharbai Bhise (45) of Hanumannagar in Keshavnagar, Mundhwa, and Hiraman Bhalerao (52) of Nana Peth.
Senior police inspector Devidas Patil of Mundhwa police station said, "The two persons have been arrested for damaging the school's property and for assaulting the policemen and preventing them from doing their duty."
Sixteen-year-old Chetan was a tenth standard student of Nutan Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Keshavnagar. He was allegedly beaten up by his school principal, Gorakh Bhong (44), and teachers Yunus Shaikh (41) and Manoj Gaikwad (34) over suspicion of a relationship with a female schoolmate. Chetan committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a speeding train at Mundhwa late on Tuesday night. His body was found on the tracks by the government railway police on Wednesday morning. The principal and the two teachers were arrested along with the girl's uncle after Chetan's father, Sunil, lodged a complaint against them.
All the four arrested were produced before the court on Thursday. They have been remanded to police custody till December 20.
Suresh Jagtap, president of Sarathi Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, which runs the school, while refusing to comment on the issue, said, "The matter is before the court and I cannot say anything in this regard."
Asked about any action being taken against the principal and the two teachers by the school's committee, Jagtap said, "We have not yet taken any decision in this regard. A meeting of school teachers will be called in the next two to three days."
Around 12.15 pm on Thursday, a mob of around 20-30 people, including Chetan's relatives, gathered near the school and started shouting slogans against the school's authorities.
Police constables Rahul Mule, Vinod Bhosale and Sachin Bhosale, who were present at the spot, said, "Initially, we requested them not create any trouble in the school. They agreed and left".
However, they returned after some time along with some women with them. "They forcibly entered the premises of the school and damaged the pots kept on the ground floor. Some of them went to first floor and broke a wall clock and window glasses by pelting stones at them," Bhosale said.
"When we tried to stop them, the women in the mob manhandled us. They disappeared from the scene when extra police force reached the spot," Bhosale said.
However, Chetan's cousin Rahul alleged that they had gone to the school just to condemn the incident. "We wanted to write our feeling on the black boards in the school. Chetan's mother, Ujjwala, was also with us, but the police refused to yield to our demands and started thrashing us," he said.
Rahul said, Chetan's mother fainted on the school's premises after seeing all the commotion. "We wanted to protest in a democratic way. The pots were damaged when people were trying to escape after police's intervention. Nobody from us threw stones at the school," Rahul added.
The police have taken into custody two senior citizens, including a woman, and two minors, who have nothing to do with the incident, Rahul said.
The school authorities have asked for police protection at the school for the next eight days.