Vadodara school teacher gets life term for ‘raping’ minor student

The girl, in her complaint, told the police that the accused lured her into believing that he would “leak” question papers of Class 12 exams to help her clear the board exams with flying colours.

A Vadodara court on Thursday sentenced a school teacher to life imprisonment for raping a Class 12 student, who is a minor, in 2018.

The teacher who was working with an English medium school in the city when he committed the crime, ran a tuition class in Vadodara, where the minor was his student. According to the case, the 16-year-old student accused the 38-year-old teacher of raping and threatening her with videos of the act.

The girl, in her complaint, told the police that the accused lured her into believing that he would “leak” question papers of Class 12 exams to help her clear the board exams with flying colours. In return, he sought sexual favours and raped the girl multiple times, the prosecution told the court during the trial.

The accused was charged under Indian Penal Code sections for rape, illegal confinement, criminal intimidation, obscenity, outraging the modesty of women and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as well as The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

While pronouncing the accused guilty, the court observed, “The accused, who represents the noble profession of a teacher, and being a married man, did not think of the future of his young wife and children while blindly committing the crime to satisfy his lust and immoral wants. Instead of teaching the victim as a teacher, the accused misused his position and exploited the student for a long duration of time to derive sexual pleasure. This is an inhuman act and considering the gravity of the crime, the court deems it fit to award a sentence of imprisonment for life to the accused.”

The accused allegedly took the girl to different cities and checked into hotels and raped her on three occasions, the prosecution said.

The victim had also told the police that the accused threatened to make public some videos he had shot of the act if she did not comply with his demands. The prosecution also contended before the court that the accused had promised the girl that he would ensure she secures “good marks to seek admission into a medical course” as she aspired to be a doctor.

According to the prosecution, after the girl’s family learnt about the incident, she tried to disconnect from the teacher by switching off her phone and deleting her social media accounts. However, the accused then began sending lewd messages to the phone number of the girl’s mother.

The court also considered the evidence submitted by the prosecution to prove that the accused teacher continued to “threaten and demand sexual favours” from the girl even after her family learnt about his act, blackmailing them to make public the videos he claimed to have filmed.

Incidentally, the accused had been part of a state government expert panel of 12 teachers formed to contemplate revision of the school textbooks for the subject of biology.

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