Sexual abuse at Pune school: One more student complains against Moral Science teacher

Development comes after this paper reported that parents of eight girls have lodged a complaint against Suresh Johnpaul Swami, who is also the vice-principal of the school

  A day after this paper reported how a Moral Science teacher, who is also vice-principal of a Lohegaon-based school, was arrested for sexually assaulting eight students, parents of one more girl have come forward to complain against him.

On Tuesday night, the Airport police station arrested Suresh Johnpaul Swami (30), who worked as vice-principal at the co-ed convent for last one year and taught Moral Science to middle-school students.

The accused: Suresh Johnpaul Swami (30) is in police custody until November 24

He was booked for molestation under the Indian Penal Code, and also under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (section 8 for sexual assault which carries a maximum punishment of three years in prison for convicts).

Currently, Swami is in police custody till November 24.Inspector Sanjay Kurundkar, in charge of Airport police station, said, “After the arrest, one more victim has come forward and confirmed that she too was manhandled and sexually assaulted in the classroom, as Swami made to pat her back but in fact touched her private parts.

mid-day’s cover story on the incident yesterday

”He added, “We are investigating the case and scrutinising his call records, images and laptops.”According to the survivors, the abuse took place from 2013 to November 12 this year.

In the meantime, the zilla parishad’s education department has constituted a probe committee of three members.

It consists of Meena Yadav, block education officer, Jayshree Donde, and B D Dumal, extension officer with the zilla’s education board. The trio visited the school and interacted with the staff, the class teacher of the girls alleging abuse, and the principal to establish the facts of the case.

The school principal, though, has said that first it needed to be investigated whether the sexual abuse occurred or not.While interacting with media persons, he claimed the issue had been internally resolved by the parents, but later some people tried to blow it up.

“Some people are trying to blow up the incident in negative terms just to malign the image of the school. The case needs to be investigated to first see if such an incident took place or not.We are cooperating with the police, but suspending Swami is not in my hands.

We have sent a report to the superiors, who will be initiating action against him.”

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