Minor sexually abused by school van driver

A private school van driver has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a five-year-old schoolgirl in southeast Delhi’s Govindpuri, police said on Tuesday. The girl studies at a prominent pre-primary school near Defence Colony and was being abused for several weeks, police said.

A private school van driver has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a five-year-old schoolgirl in southeast Delhi’s Govindpuri, police said on Tuesday. The girl studies at a prominent pre-primary school near Defence Colony and was being abused for several weeks, police said.

The driver, identified as Vipin Kumar, is married and lives near the victim’s house. Vipin owned the vehicle hired by parents on a monthly basis to ferry their wards and was not attached to the school.

The case came to light on Monday when the girl’s parents approached the Govindpuri police station and lodged a case of sexual harassment against the driver. The girl’s parents said she had stopped going to school for the past 10 days.

“Initially her mother thought her daughter was not well. On Monday, when she asked her daughter to go to school, the girl started crying. Prodded further, the girl broke down and told her mother that the school cab driver indulged in indecent acts,” said a police officer quoting the complaint.

The girl’s mother informed her husband after which they approached the police.

A case under sections 4 and 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered against the driver on their complaint.

A team was sent to his home from where he was arrested and produced before a city court that sent him to Tihar jail.

The girl was the first to be picked up from home. “Since the accused lived in the same locality, the victim was the first one to be picked up. The driver used to sexually harass before reaching the next pick-up stop, which was almost a kilometre away,” added the officer.

The case is a grim reminder of the shocking Prasad Nagar rape case when a school cab driver allegedly drugged and raped a schoolgirl and sodomised her two younger brothers for one-and-half years in 2010.