Two teachers who were charged with sexually assaulting a four-year-old student inside a school in 2017 were convicted by a court on Wednesday. The teachers were found guilty of gang rape and aggravated penetrative sexual assault.
Public prosecutor Shibnath Adhikary said the physical education teachers, Abhishek Roy and Mohammad Mafisuddin, were convicted under Section 376D of IPC and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act in the additional sessions judge’s court.
IPC Section 376D deals with the offence of gang rape and Section 6 of Pocso deals with the offence of aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a minor.
The maximum punishment under the two sections is life imprisonment.
Public prosecutor Adhikary said the quantum of the punishment for Roy and Mafisuddin would be announced on March 31.
The father of the girl said he felt vindicated. “Some people were saying I was manipulating. This verdict is an answer to all that justice has prevailed. If anyone with a criminal bent of mind thinks of doing anything to a child, this order will deter him,” the father said.
He said the girl, who was then in Nursery, is now in Class III at another school in the city.
“I have fought this case and during this period I lost my mother to cancer and my job. There were days when I held court papers in one hand and my mother’s health report in another, but I fought on,” he said.
“My job required me to travel out of the city. For the first three months (after the case started), I had to go to court regularly. So, I could not keep my job. I decided to fight for justice,” he said.
“At that time I told other parents that there should be no violence against the school because that was not my intention.”
Adhikary said the conviction was based on medical reports of the child and the deposition of more than 25 witnesses who were in the school when the child was assaulted.
A police officer who was involved in the investigation said: “We did not get any CCTV footage. So, we had to depend on circumstantial evidence and witness accounts.”
According to the complaint the child’s parents had lodged on November 30, 2017, their daughter was lured into the washroom with the promise of chocolate by two men, one of whom was popular as “Chocolate Kaku” among the children, and was sexually assaulted.
The girl’s father said the child had complained of abdominal pain after returning from school that day. Her mother saw bloodstains on her uniform.
“We first took her to a paediatrician thinking she was suffering from some infection. We were shocked when the doctor said it was a case of sexual assault,” the father said.
He took the child to Jadavpur police station the same evening. After a complaint was lodged, the child was taken to SSKM Hospital for a medical test.
As news of the incident spread, angry parents protested in front of the school alleging lack of security on the campus and raising questions why male physical education teachers had been hired for a girls’ school.
Enraged parents had blockaded the school demanding the arrest of the principal and the chairperson and a public apology with folded hands.
The parents had also alleged that none of the security cameras in the school was functional.
Mafisuddin, one of the convicts, was married for two months when he was arrested. Roy, the other convict, was “popular” among the children, especially because he often distributed chocolates to them.
The mother of a girl, who studies in the school where the assault took place, said after the verdict was announced: “We consider the school to be a safe place for our children. If such an incident can happen at school, will parents have to keep their children at home?”
