Agitation over sexual harassment on minor girl turns Kolkata school into battlefield, accused teacher held
Kolkata, Oct 9 (IBNS): Police on Tuesday arrested a teacher of a state government aided school in south Kolkata for allegedly sexually harassing a six-year-old girl student inside the school premise, reports said.
According to reports, accused teacher of the school's primary section- Dipak Karmakar, who is a resident of southern Kolkata's Ranikuthi area, was held in the evening.
Earlier on Sep 26, a student of government sponsored Binodini Girls' High School's pre-primary section was allegedly molested and sexually harassed by the teacher in the school.
After knowing the incident, hundreds of guardians staged demonstration in front of the school at Dhakuria area under Lake Police Station limits in south part of the city and the protest turned violent when agitators tried to break school's gate and to enter the school premise.
When a huge police force from nearby police stations rushed to the scene, protesting guardians engaged in a skirmish with the policemen.
Agitators reportedly threw stones and bricks aiming at the police force, leaving few cops along with senior police officials injured.
Police, later, restored to lathicharge to disperse the protesters and to bring the situation under control.
"As few protesting guardians and some outsiders tried to take the law into their own hands and attacked police personnel, we had to restore to mild lathicharge to bring the situation under control," a senior official of Kolkata Police.
"Besides lodging an FIR to probe the incident of violent protests, we have arrested at least four persons for ransacking school properties, taking law into own hands and attacking the police," the official added.
Meanwhile, several protesters were injured due to the lathicharge by police.
"There was no lady cop and male police personnel beat up protesting women in front of the school," a protester alleged.
"Few protesting women, who are the mothers of the girls' school's students, sustained injuries due to the indiscriminate lathicharge by the cops," the agitator said.
However, the state government's education department has sought a detailed report from the school on the incident of alleged sexual harassment as well as the violent protest, held by a section of guardians.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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