Sexual assault by woman tutor: Boy’s family says she is threatening them
The boy who has his exams next month has stopped going to school from past few weeks.
A 34-year-old woman teacher, who is currently out on bail for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy who was taking tuitions from her, has allegedly been threatening him and his family members. This was submitted by the victim and his father before a court here on Thursday.
However, additional district and sessions judge Poonam R Joshi asked them to take the matter up with the police. The counsel of the victim is now contemplating moving a plea for cancellation of her bail, citing threat to child’s safety and security.
The tutor was granted bail in July “considering she was a woman, without commenting on the merit of the case”. Last month, charges were framed under Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
A science teacher in a government school, and mother of two girls, the accused has allegedly been intimidating the boy and followed him and his father to a kiosk on the previous court hearing. The tutor and her husband even abused the boy’s father, a vendor, it is alleged.
It has also emerged that she sends messages to the boy through others expressing intent to meet him, due to which the family was living in fear. In the application, the father pleaded that police be directed to provide security to the family. The minor is afraid to go out of his home and hasn’t been attending school for the past couple of days.
A counsellor of Childline, a child helpline, that had filed a police complaint in the case, was also accompanying the child and his parents to court.
The father also told the court that some allegations made in the complaint hadn’t been included by the police in the challan. He told the court that the police hadn’t included various traumatic episodes in the challan. The teacher had showed her desperation to meet the boy by allegedly slitting her wrist once when the boy was away to Bathinda for a sports event. Pictures of her slit wrist have been included in the court file and the accused had sent the pictures to the boy on a “secret SIM” provided to him by her.
The court recently dismissed an application by the Sector 31 SHO to remove Section 6 of the POCSO Act and only retain Section 10.
The tutor wasn’t available for comment. Her defence counsel Joban Singh said the application wasn’t entertained by the court as it has to be looked into by the police, terming the allegations to influence the child “baseless”.
The case
The teacher lived in the same colony as the child, a student of Class 10. The alleged sexual abuse made headlines after police arrested her on May 24 after the child helpline filed a police complaint. The families know each other well and owing to this, the boy and his sister started taking tuitions from the woman in September 2017. As per the police complaint, the woman asked the boy’s parents to send their daughter for tuition separately so that she could focus on their son, and was sexually abusing him since March. In March, the boy’s mother barred him from going for tuitions, following which a drama ensued wherein the teacher locked the boy in her house in the presence of his parents and her husband.
