School committee President held for molesting minor girl in Uran

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The Uran police arrested the president of a school's managing committee on Tuesday for allegedly molesting a minor girl on campus. The accused, 32, used to visit the school frequently and was allowed to enter classrooms because of his position.

Atul Ahire, Inspector from Uran police station, told Hindustan Times, "On April 12, when the accused visited the school, he took the Class 1 student to a vacant room. There he molested her." A few other students saw him through a window and raised an alarm. They also informed the girl's parents who approached the police and filed an FIR. The accused was arrested on Tuesday.

The girl's parents also alleged that the accused had molested several students in the past but the police had not received any complaints. Ahire said, "No other parents have come to us with similar complaints. We will take requisite measures if we receive more complaints."

The police have booked the accused under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code and various sections of POCSO Act. He was produced in court on Monday and was remanded in police custody till April 20.

In a similar incident, five people were convicted for raping a mentally ill woman in 2016 in Maharashtra's Thane district.

While four of them were sentenced to 20 years in jail by District Judge S A Sinha and also fined Rs 20,000 each for kidnapping and raping the victim, the fifth person, a fruit vendor, was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment and fined Rs 10,000 for rape.

The 22-year-old woman was raped by the accused on January 8, 2016, Additional Public Prosecutor Ujjwala Moholkar said. She had first gone to the house of a fruit vendor who raped her, then an autorickshaw driver who promised to drop her home but took her to a desolate place and called three of his friends and raped her, the APP said.

After she narrated her ordeal to her mother, a case was filed at Vartak Nagar police station, Moholkar said. The five men who have been convicted are fruit vendor Gopi Harishsingh Bora (43), autorickshaw driver Balaji Bala Naroji Kharat (41), Rajesh Lalchand Mourya (26), Kamlesh Pintu Chotelal Gupta (37) and Vijay Bahadur Tufani Kamlaprasad Gupta (43).

Seventeen witnesses were examined during the trial, Moholkar said.

With inputs from PTI

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