A Physical Education teacher of a government school at Nedumangad in rural Thiruvananthapuram, was arrested on Friday evening, for allegedly sexually abusing several students.
Bobby C Joseph was arrested after the District Child Protection Unit referred the case to the Nedumangad Police Station.
“He was arrested on Friday evening and a case has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. He has been remanded today and taken to jail,” Nedumangad SI said.
The teacher had allegedly abused the boys and also forced them to be intimate with each other so he could watch them.
The abuse came to light after one of the students dropped a complaint in a drop box installed at the school as part of the Souhrida Club. The clubs are an initiative in government schools for children to express their problems and improve their social and interpersonal skills.
“It is a class 11 student that dropped the complaint about the abuse. The class teacher who saw the complaint reported it to the principal. Nine more students then gave a written complaint against the same teacher for abuse. The school informed the District Child Protection Unit,” said an official at the DCPU.
The DCPU asked the school’s counsellor to speak to the students for more clarity. “They were also able to take statements from the children. It is on the basis of what the counsellor and the teachers told us that we have alerted the police. We first spoke to DYSP Stuart Keeler, then the CI Rajesh Kumar and SI Sunil Gopi.”
It was clear from the statements of the students that this was not a case of false allegations arising out of personal animosity against the teacher, the DCPU official said. “We could see that it was genuine the way the students also spoke about the teacher’s misbehaviour towards other students.”