Maharashtra: Pune teacher held for allegedly sexually harassing 13-year-old student

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A 42-year-old teacher allegedly sexually harassed a 13-year-old female student by sending obscene messages on WhatsApp chat and inappropriately touching the girl while in school in a village in Daund tehsil of Pune Rural. The Pune Rural Police have arrested the Pune teacher along with the headmaster of the school, as reported by the news agency ANI.

Pune Rural Police SP Pankaj Deshmukh told ANI that the police took a suo moto cognizance of the incident on Thursday and a senior police official visited the girl's village to verify the facts. The police immediately registered a case after receiving a formal complaint from the victim's parents.

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The Pune Police arrested the headmaster of the school for failing to report the incident to the authorities after the student's father made a complaint about the incident in the school, said the police, reported ANI.

The father of the girl found that the Pune teacher had allegedly sent inappropriate messages to his daughter before August 15. When the father approached the headmaster with his concerns, the headmaster reportedly ignored the complaint which led to his arrest, according to the police, reported ANI.

Both the headmaster and the Pune teacher have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), said police.

Further investigation into the matter is underway. More details are awaited.

In another case, the body of a 10-year-old girl was recovered from a sugarcane field in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district on Thursday morning, after which her uncle was arrested for alleged rape and murder, a police official said, reported PTI.

The girl, whose family hails from Bihar, had gone missing on Wednesday evening and her parents had filed a missing person complaint sometime later, the official said.

"The minor's body was spotted in the morning by local residents in a sugarcane field just 800 metres away from her home in Shiye village under Karvir taluka. It has been established her uncle sexually assaulted the girl and then strangled her. The accused has confessed during interrogation," the official said, reported PTI.

"Our probe has found he lied to the girl's mother when she inquired about the child's absence on Wednesday evening. He told her the girl had left the house in anger after he scolded her. The accused had left home before the deceased girl's father arrived on Wednesday night and came back only this morning," the official said, reported PTI.

He raped and murdered the girl and will be produced in the court on Friday, Superintendent of Police Mahendra Pandit told PTI.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)