A special POCSO court has rejected the anticipatory bail application of a 47-year-old priest, who has been accused of repeatedly raping a woman employee of a city school where he is the principal. The 19-year-old woman, a former student of the school, has been employed as an assistant teacher at the institute since 2017. The teacher said that she had taken up the job owing to her poor financial conditions. Special public prosecutor Meera Choudhari Bhosale opposed the anticipatory bail application.
The police told the court that they suspected the accused might have misused his position and engaged in such instances with other women too. It was also submitted that the accused has been absconding since the FIR was registered on January 31 and it was suspected that he was in possession of obscene pictures of the woman. Cops also submitted that the accused had repeatedly threatened the woman against lodging a complaint.
The woman said that she had studied at the school from class I to X and during her last two years as a student, in 2013-14, the accused used to call her to his office and sexually abuse her. She said that after completing her class X, she left the school and went to college. However, she said, in 2017 she returned to work at the school's kindergarten section due to her poor financial condition.
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The woman alleged that after the accused got to know that she had returned to the school as a probationary teacher, he called her to his office and threatened to expel her three younger siblings studying there. She said that in August 2017, the accused raped her. On August 10, 2017, the woman claimed, the priest sexually assaulted her again and asked her to go to another priest. The woman said that she went to the deputy manager of the school and later to another lady teacher to complain, but they both disbelieved her. She alleged that the sexual assault continued until November 2017.
The woman has also said that she was threatened by a man and a woman from the "education department", and in December, they made her write a letter favouring the principal. On February 25, the accused moved a plea seeking anticipatory bail. He claimed that the case against him was fabricated and he himself was a victim. Earlier in February, the accused had filed an extortion case against some people who had been blackmailing him using a private video of him. He claimed that an internal committee appointed by the state education department has "absolved him of the crime".
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