Lucknow: The principal of a private school was beaten up by a group of parents and later booked by police for molestation after complaints by students from several classes that he would call them to his cabin and touch them inappropriately.
The students alleged that the principal threatened to fail them in their exams and strike their names off the rolls when they protested.
On Tuesday, parents of a group of students from classes VII to X roughed up the principal on the school’s premises. Police were informed on Wednesday.
The principal, meanwhile, submitted a counter-complaint against the parents for assault.
One of the complainants, the father of a Class VIII student, said after some of the girls shared with their parents on Monday how the principal had been sexually harassing them, they approached the local councillor, Parmosh Yadav.
“Yadav visited the school on Tuesday and spoke to the students one by one. She then told us to submit a complaint with the police,” the parent said.
On Wednesday, Yadav said that she spoke to the girls individually and found coherence in their allegations. “I advised the parents to go to the cops but some of them attacked the principal. I have received complaint letters from more than 50 girls and have shared them with the cops,” she said.
Yadav said the school has CCTV cameras in each classroom and in the principal’s office too. “The principal, we found, had switched off the cameras in his office,” she said.
DCP (rural) Vivek Yadav said an FIR has been registered against the principal under the IPC Sections 354A (molestation) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The counter-complaint submitted against the councillor, her associates Anil Yadav and Sushil Yadav, two guards and 60 unknown persons were registered under IPC Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 307 (attempt to murder), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
The DCP said the statements of the students were yet to be recorded.
