Shirdi (Maharashtra): Two teachers from the government-run Zilla Parishad Marathi School here were arrested on Tuesday on allegations of sexually abusing several female students over the past 4 years. The victims alleged that the accused have been inflicting sexually inappropriate behaviour and showing them obscene videos on their phones during school hours.
Enraged parents of the students stormed the school on Tuesday and confronted the accused about the allegations made by their children. When the accused allegedly responded in a crude manner, the arguments escalated and the parents started thrashing both the accused teachers. Meanwhile, the police reached the school and pacified the matter, while detaining the two accused for interrogation.
The matter came to light after one of the victims stopped going to school, and revealed to her parents the reasons for doing so. The parents of this girl reached out to the families of other students, who then took their children into confidence and tried to confirm such incidents. The students started revealing shocking details to their parents, confirming that the teachers have been involved in such behaviour for the past 4 years.
"I am a class 8 student. This has been going on since class 4 with me and several other girls. He (the accused) would show us obscene videos on his phone during teaching hours and touch us inappropriately. He threatened to rusticate us from the school if we informed our parents or anyone else about the matter," one of the victims said. Another victim alleged that one of the accused barely taught anything in the class and sat with his phone, watching and showing obscene videos to girl students.
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"He used to say all sorts of improper things in the class and threatened us not to speak about it anywhere. Some students had anyway told their parents about this. We informed our class teacher too about this, who then asked us to reach out to our parents and ask them to intervene," said another victim, further informing that other teachers at the school had confronted the accused about this, but to no avail. She also said that there were about 10-12 more students who were abused by the accused.
The two accused teachers, identified as Sanjay Sakhahari Thorat and Rajendra Madhav Thorat, have been arrested and a case is registered against them under sections of the Scheduled Tribes Act and Sections 8 and 12 of the IPC Act, informed Gulabrao Patil, Police Inspector, Shirdi Police Station. He reassured that strict legal action will be taken against the culprits while the officials are currently trying to record statements of other minor victims. The Deputy Superintendent of Police Sanjay Satav has also taken notice of the case and reassured appropriate action in the matter.
