ByTeacher locked boy in madrassa, raped him; attempted to violate boy’s sister.The Wadala police have arrested the 28-year-old maulana of a Bangalipura madrassa for sexually assaulting two minors on several occasions. The religious scholar runs one of many educational institutions in that locality, one of which the victims attended after school. That he had preyed on the two children – a boy, 13, and his 11-year-old sister – became known following a safety drive conducted by the police for minors in Wadala, when the teenager’s parents complained that the boy had been raped on several occasions in the past five months.The madrassa is housed in a singlestorey structure and counts as its members approximately 40 children who visit it to study religious texts for two or three hours after school. The maulana has been booked for raping the 13-year-old boy and attempted rape of the girl. Police said he hails from Bhiwandi but has lived in the madrassa with his brother for the past ten years.The boy’s parents told the police that they did not believe him as the accused was a close friend and often helped the family on several occasions in educating the two children. The maulana, they said, summoned the children to the madrassa on the pretext of assisting them with school work and sexually abused the siblings.“The boy had been complaining about the sexual assault for a very long time which the parents did not heed. However a few days back, their daughter came home crying and said that she’d never go back to the madrassa because the maulana had attempted to rape her. She also said that she escaped from him and has run home. This is when the parents realised the severity of the incident and decided to approach us after which an FIR was registered,” said a police officer at Wadala station, asking that his name be withheld as he isn’t authorised to speak to the media.Mumbai Mirror is withholding the names of the accused and the institution which he ran in accordance with Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act norms, which forbid references to such details for fear of revealing the identity of victims.A few hours after the complaint was registered, the maulana was arrested. “We have booked him under sections 354A (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 377 (unnatural offences) and 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code as well as other relevant sections of the POCSO Act,” said Kiran Chavan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, port zone. “The accused was produced before a local court and has been remanded in police custody until September 21.”The Wadala police will expand the scope of the drive and hold meetings with students at other madrassas to determine if other such instances have occurred.