Patna: Police in Bihar Friday arrested a school principal and three others after a Grade 9 girl student was allegedly gang-raped in a school.
The victim has named 18 persons, including the school principal and two teachers, in the case of her sexual exploitation and blackmail which had been going on for the past seven months. The teenaged victim is enrolled in a private school located under Ekma police station in Saran district, some 100km north of Patna.
According to her complaint, three students gang-raped her in the toilet at the school last year, filming the entire incident.
Using the video, the accused persons began blackmailing her and also forced her to to have sex with other students of the school.
When the victim brought the matter to the notice of the school administration, the school principal as well as some teachers too began sexually exploiting her, instead of coming to her rescue.
This trauma had continued for the past seven months until the victim finally mustered courage and reported the matter to her parents who filed a case gainst 18 persons on Friday at the local police station. The accused include the school principal Uday Singh, two teachers and 15 students, most of them teenagers.
Acting swiftly in the matter, the police have arrested four accused persons including the school principal while the victim has been sent to hospital for medical examination.
“The victim told us that the school principal had been raping her for the past seven months. We have arrested the principal along with three other persons and the matter is being thoroughly investigated,” the local district superintendent of police Hari Kishore Rai told the media on Friday.
The increasing cases of rape have become a matter of serious concern in Bihar. According to an official report, a total of 289 incidents of rape were reported till March this year, indicating that at least three girls were being raped every day in the state. Last year, altogether 1,198 incidents of rapes were reported, preceded by 1,008 incidents in 2016, 1,041 in 2015, 1,127 in 2014 and 1,128 in 2013.
Similarly, 927 cases reported in 2012, 934 in 2011, 795 in 2010, 929 in 2009, 1,041 in 2008, 1,122 in 2007, 1,083 in 2006 and 973 in 2005 — the year when chief minister Nitish Kumar came to power putting an end to 15 years of the Rashtriya Janata Dal regime promising to establish “rule of law” in Bihar.
