punjab

Updated: May 25, 2018 08:30 IST

A 34-year-old woman teacher was arrested in Chandigarh on Thursday for allegedly sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy who was taking tuition from her.

After a confrontation with the teacher on Monday, the boy’s parents contacted Childline, a 24-hour, toll-free, telephone helpline service for children in distress on Wednesday and were guided to lodge a complaint with the police. “We have registered a case under Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act,” said Chandigarh senior superintendent of police Nilambari Vijay Jagdale.

Both the victim and the accused, a government school science teacher, are neighbours at Ram Darbar colony in Sector 31, Chandigarh. The families know each other well and owing to this, the boy, a Class 10 student and his younger sister started taking tuitions from the woman in September 2017.

“The teacher requested the boy’s parents to send their daughter to for tuition separately so that she could ‘focus’ on their son. The parents agreed but on the pretext of imparting him knowledge, she started luring the boy physically in the beginning of 2018. She also gave him a SIM card to stay in touch with her,” said Dr Sangeeta Jund, the project director of Childline, Chandigarh, said,

As his grades dropped in March, the boy’s mother barred him from going to the teacher for tuitions.

Dr Jund said the teacher, who is the mother of two girls, aged 10 and eight years old, had grown possessive about the boy. She contacted his parents again in April to send him for tuitions. In a desperate bid, she urged the parents to meet her with their son one last time at her house on Monday.

High drama ensued as she locked the boy in a room in her house in the presence of his parents, her husband and her daughters.

“She asked her husband to stay out of the matter and kept screaming that the boy will stay with her,” said Dr Jund.

Neighbours intervened and the boy was rescued.

The drama didn’t end there. As the victim reached his house along with his parents, the woman followed them and barged into their house. She got hold of a bottle of cough syrup kept in the boy’s house and gulped it down, telling the family she was committing suicide.

The parents called the police and the woman was taken to hospital on Monday night. She remained hospitalised for a day.

Meanwhile, the parents reached out to Childline and were told to lodge a police complaint. The teacher was produced before a local court on Thursday, following which she was remanded in judicial custody.