In a shocking incident in Uttar Pradesh's Shahadatganj, 51 girls were allegedly held hostage and sexually abused by the manager of a madrasa.
The Lucknow police raided the madrasa, following which, the manager was arrested and several girls were rescued.
The situation came to a light after a few girls managed to alert neighbours by passing them chits, which narrated their ordeal. Around 125 girls go to the madrasa.
The neighbours alerted the police raided the madrasa.
"We took strict action, the moment we got the complaint. We took our team and went there for the raid. We found 51 students who were held hostage in the madrasa. The culprit is arrested and investigations are on. He used to molest those students and beat them," Deepak Kumar, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Lucknow was quoted as saying by ANI.
An FIR has been registered said Vikas Tripathi, Superintendent of Police, West Uttar Pradesh.
"We got a complaint that few students are allegedly held hostage in madrasa. There were different complaints as well by the students. We took the issue seriously and with the joint team we came here to raid. After the investigation we found that the complaints were right. So we had lodged FIR. The accused has been arrested," the SP said.
The issue has also been reported to the Child Welfare Committee.
However, this is not the first time that a head or a staff of an educational institution have been accused of sexually exploiting students.
In fact, 2017 has been a witness to several such incidents.
Earlier in March, a madrasa teacher had been arrested for sexually exploiting at least four minor girls aged between 8 and 11 at a madrasa at Iritty in Kannur, Kerala.
In another case, a headmaster of a government school in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu was sentenced to 55 years of imprisonment on Tuesday, September 19, after he was found guilty of sexually abusing 22 girls.
