Teacher gets 5 years in jail for molesting girls in 2019

A 28-year-old teacher in Mumbai has been sentenced to five years in prison for sexually assaulting three Class 5 girls in 2019. The teacher was also fined ₹10,000.

MUMBAI: A special court under the POCSO (Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences) Act on Tuesday sentenced a 28-year-old teacher from a Govandi-based school to five years of imprisonment for sexually assaulting three Class 5 girls in 2019.

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“The accused is not a layman but a teacher. The only career that influences other professions is teaching. Hence, the teacher is expected to act as a protector. Such heinous acts by the accused have cast a lifelong psychological and emotional impact on the victims,” said special judge Seema Jadhav and imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on the accused.

According to the prosecution, on September 24, 2019, the incident came to light when the elder sister of one of the girls went to pick up her and her friends from the school and was told that their class teacher had been misbehaving with them for a long time.

The girls told her that their class teacher touched them inappropriately on several occasions. “We sat on benches of two in the classroom. Sir often forcefully sat with us and would touch us inappropriately,” said one of the victims in her testimony. “We did not feel like attending school.”

When the parents went to confront the teacher, he gave evasive answers. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged at Shivaji Nagar Police Station.

Supporting the case of the girls, the court also noted that every child has a different response and coping mechanism and that a traumatized child, at times, would prefer safety, and that is what happened in the present case, where the child stayed at home.

Seeking maximum punishment for the accused, special public prosecutor Kalpana Hire submitted that the offence was serious, and the testimony of the witnesses was corroborative, proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, the advocate representing the accused argued that there was a delay in registering the FIR, which had not been explained satisfactorily, and that the absence of medical evidence implied the probability of a false case.

The accused was booked under sections 10 (Punishment for aggravated sexual assault) and 12 (Punishment for sexual harassment) of the POCSO Act, 2012.