Police books G.D. Birla principal

Kolkata: Under pressure from the students’ guardians, the police has finally booked G.D. Birla Centre for Education principal, Sharmila Nath, in a case as the two arrested teachers’ police custody have been extended by the Alipore court on Monday for another 10 days.

A meeting will be held in presence of the guardians’ forum, the school authorities and the police at the school on NSC Bose Road in Ranikuthi on Tuesday. Spokesperson of Ashok Hall Group of Schools, Subhash Mohanty, said, “The tripartite meeting will start at 12 noon. Since beginning, we wanted a meeting in an organised way.”

The special judge, designated for hearing cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, also ordered for the recording of the victim’s confidential statement under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

On Sunday, the victim’s father and other students’ parents visited the Jadavpur police station and lodged a complaint against Ms Nath accusing her of trying cover up the crime.

Late night, Ms Nath has been slapped with the charges of 201 (destruction of evidence of offence), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and section 21 (failure to report) of the POCSO Act.

She may be questioned by the women grievance cell of the detective department of the Kolkata police soon. The arrested duo: Abhishek Roy and Mohammed Mafizuddin were produced at the court at around 2 pm.

After the hearing, the judge remanded them to the police custody till December 15. He also ordered medico-legal test of the four-year-old victim. Breaking her silence, chief minister Mamata Banerjee described the incident as ‘unfortunate.’

She said, “It is an unfortunate incident. Our education minister has spoken about it. All condemned it. This is nothing new. But I do not think for a particular teacher, the entire community should be blamed. The teachers’ community is not bad. But there may be some bad people. We have to take action against them.”

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Roopa Ganguly went to the school during the day and tried to enter forcibly. She however faced angry protests by the guardians who vehemently objected to her presence. Ms Ganguly was seen shouting at the entrance after she was refused entry.

Meanwhile chairperson of West Bengal State Commission for Protection of Child Rights Ananya Chakraborti visited the school and spoke the guardians who were demonstrating there. She also talked to the victim’s father who was present there. Ms Chakraborti informed that she would take up the sudden closure of the school and lack of security with education minister Partha Chatterjee. The victim’s father later fell ill during the demonstration. He however gained consciousness with the help of others later.