Sextortion in Oshiwara Girls Hostel Principal arrested in minor girl molestation case
Sextortion in Oshiwara Girls Hostel Principal arrested in minor girl molestation case
Sextortion, the most ugly crime is on the rise in Mumbai. This is notwithstanding the Mumbai Police cracking down such crimes on priority basis.
In the recent sextortion case,a 14 year girl residing in the Girl’s Hostel in Goregaon was repeatedly molested by the pastor and principal of the Hostel. This comes as nerve shattering news.
As per police reports, the matter surfaced when the victim ran away from the hostel on February 15 and took shelter in the home of one of the hostel’s female cleaners, to whom she narrated the entire incident. The cleaner approached a lawyer and child rights activist Deepak Sonavane for assistance.
According to Sonavane the girl narrated the harrowing experience by her at the Hostel where she was being regularly molested since November 2022 by the Principal. She was beaten, starved, neglected and even deprived of sanitary pads when she raised any objection to the relentless sexual abuse.
Even as she pleaded for help, the staff continued to turn a blind eye to her plight.
Sonavane lawyer and child rights activist escorted the victim to the Bangur Nagar Link Road police station where the police interrogated the girl for almost 10 hours before lodging a first information report (FIR) in the case.
Sonavane went on to add that one need to take cognisance of the police insensitivity, which under the pretext of due process traumatised the child further by making her sit through 10 hours of cross-examination.
If this is the state of affairs when such high-ranking officers are around, what must happen when they aren’t?
As a lawyer, he was aghast how often the police staff strayed from the proper protocol, such as when they noted a sanitised version of the girl’s narration instead of noting it verbatim. This deceptively simple deviation has severe repercussions. .
At the end of the day, the girl was moved to a children’s home and presented before the child welfare committee as well.
Meanwhile, Pramod Tawade, senior police inspector of Bangur Nagar Link Road police station, asserted that the accused pastor was arrested. and remanded to judicial custody by the court.
A case has been registered against the accused under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of ChildrenfromSexualOffences Act(POCSO).
News Input K.V.Raman
