A Priest, who is also a principal in a reputed English medium convent school in Pune, has been arrested from Mumbai for allegedly sexually abusing a student, according to Times of India. According to the reports, the police has booked the priest under the stringent Pocso Act for allegedly showing an adult video clip to a 14-year-old student twice and touching him inappropriately.
Interestingly, the police have said that priest had claimed that he had already been awarded punishment by a ‘religious authority’ in Poland. The police said that the religious authorities had asked the priest to be under ‘house arrest’ for three years.
According to the Indian Express, the police demanded the priest’s custody and submitted his statements before the court, where he claimed that an ‘internal inquiry’ had been conducted by a bishop from a school in Solapur, following which the punishment was awarded to him. The police said that there are still verifying about the religious authority and the punishment that the priest was claiming to. The police also said that the investigation has revealed that two more boys had been similarly abused by the priest.
The reports say that the abuse had occurred in March this year on class 8 student allegedly at the principal’s chamber. Two days later, the priest had allegedly shown a porn clip to the student at the restroom of the school. The boy then went on to report it to the female school counsellor at the end of the academic year.
However, the counsellor had asked the student to stay silent about the abuse, as she feared about the possibility of losing the job if she spoke against the principal, said the police officials. The police further added that the family initially chose to remain silent fearing that hat his education will be affected, but finally lodged a complaint against the priest under section 506 (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code and provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso Act).
Senior inspector Sayaji Gaware told that the priest had been staying at a place ‘Carmel Heaven’ in Wagholi, under house arrest, but fled the spot as soon as he got aware of the FIR. He said that the priest was arrested at Chembur while he was travelling to Ahmedabad. The Mumbai police had detained him and the Pune police took the priest to their custody for further questioning. The special court has remanded the priest to police custody till September 23.
