By Matters India Reporter
Dindori, March 9, 2023: A court in central India has remanded in judicial custody principal of a Catholic school while the police have intensified their search for a priest and a nun wanted in an alleged sexual harassment of minor school girls.
Leaders of the Jabalpur Catholic diocese have denied the allegation which they say is a conspiracy to tarnish the image of a Church institution that serves the poor.
The court in tribal dominated Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh state on March 7 remanded Nam Singh Yadav, principal of the diocesan higher secondary school. Dindori is some 140 km southeast of Jabalpur, the diocesan headquarters, and 460 km east of Bhopal, the state capital.
Yadav, the priest, the nun and a teacher are charged with violating the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).
The district child welfare committee after a surprise inspection of the higher secondary school under the Jabalpur Diocesan Education Society in Junwani, a remote village in a forest, on March 4 lodged a complaint with the women police station in Dindori district accusing the four of sexually harassment of eight girl students.
The inspection of the hostels for boys and girls attached to the school was carried out at the behest of officials from the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
During the inspection, one of the girls reportedly accused the principal of inappropriately touching her.
The police, who had accompanied the child rights team, immediately took the principal into custody.
The team also took away the eight girls.
The police, however, released Yadav the following day after other students of the school and their parents staged a demonstration demanding the principal’s release. They alleged that Yadav was trapped in a “totally fake case.”
However, the principal was rearrested March 7 reportedly under pressure from the chairman of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Priyank Kanoongo.
The police inspector, who released Yadav, was suspended. A day later on March 8, the Superintendent of Police Sanjay Singh, who initially supported the suspended inspector, was also reportedly transferred from his post.
Meanwhile, the police said they have stepped up search operations for other accused in the case, who are allegedly on the run.
Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur denied the allegations against the principal and others.
The diocese has been running the school and hostels for boys and the girls for more than 80 years. Currently more than 600 boys and girls study in the school.
“We have been serving the poor people but never had faced such a situation,” the prelate told Matters India.
Bishop Almeida questioned the inspection in the hostels of girls at night in violation of the law. “It is unfortunate that officials who are supposed to uphold the laws are violating it,” he regretted.
The prelate, however, asserted that “the truth will be vindicated in the court.”
Meanwhile, Aman Singh Porthe, state president of the Gondwana Ganatantra Party, a tribal political outfit, termed the inspection and the arrest of the principal as “part of a conspiracy to defame the Church school” where tribal students get quality education.
The leader also pledged his support to the Christians saying, “the students and the parents are with the school management.”
Madhya Pradesh is ruled by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Christians make up 0.29 percent of more than 72 million people in the state.