24 July,2014 06:35 AM IST | | Shirish Vaktania
Male student from Kandivli school, who was nowhere to be found for 20 minutes after classes finished, was brought back by a cleaner, who told cops that he had only kissed the child on his cheeks
The mysterious disappearance of a four-year-old boy inside his school premises for 20 minutes sent parents into a tizzy last week. The boy's parents fear that a cleaner in the toilet sexually assaulted him.
The school authorities, however, have raised a red flag by firing the cleaner from his job, ostensibly to wash its hands off the matter. The Kandivli police have registered a non-cognisable complaint against the cleaner, and released him with a warning.
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The incident took place in a reputed school near Mahavir Nagar at Kandivli (West) on Friday morning. There are no CCTV cameras installed in the area where the alleged assault is said to have taken place, school authorities said.
The school cleaner has been identified as Vijay (25), who started working for the school two years ago. The boy is a Junior KG student in the school. He completed his morning classes between 9 am and 11.15 am, before disappearing for 20 minutes.
The cleaner, who emerged with him later, has told the police that he only kissed the boy on his cheeks as he thought the boy was cute, and that he had no intention of molesting or sodomising him. A member of the school's management said, "Around 11.15 am on Friday, the boy left the classroom and was missing for 20 minutes.
All the other children were in queue and had reached the exit. All the parents were waiting for their children, but one boy was missing. His parents were getting worried, when suddenly the cleaner named Vijay brought the child with him and handed him over his parents.
We fired the cleaner after this incident, because as we did not want to create any issue, or any more trouble for the parents." Assistant Sub-inspector Atul Dahiphale of Kandivli police station said, "The parents complained that the cleaner had molested a student.
We immediately took the cleaner Vijay in our custody and interrogated him. We didn't find any clues of such molestation and released him after giving him a warning." "Vijay told us that he had given the boy a kiss on his cheek, but had not molested or sodomised him.
We have only registered a non-cognisable offence in this incident and we are investigating the matter further. If we get any kind of clue or evidence, we will register an FIR," he added.
