A 14-year-old girl, studying in Std VIII of Saint Peter’s School, Vasai, was allegedly molested by a priest, who was also her teacher, on April 4.
A 14-year-old girl, studying in Std VIII of Saint Peter’s School, Vasai, was allegedly molested by a priest, who was also her teacher, on April 4. The girl was so scared and traumatised that she reported the incident to her parents only on Sunday.
A complaint was lodged with Vasai police against the priest, Father Agnel, 45, a Marathi teacher in the school. According to it, the girl, Swati Shinde (name changed), had gone to school on April 4 for her Marathi language viva examination. Along with her, there was another girl from her class.
The complaint stated that Father Agnel sent the other girl away and asked Swati to wait in his office. Alone with her, the priest tried “to touch her private parts and also tried to remove her top”.
Swati started crying and begged with Father Agnel to let her go. He relented, but threatened her that he would fail her in the annual exams if she told anyone about the incident.
Traumatised by the incident, Swati receded into a shell. She stopped going out to play with her friends, and kept mum even at home, stated the complaint. Her strange behaviour worried her parents. Vitthaldas, her father, repeatedly wanted to know what was wrong with her, but she was too scared to recount the horror.
Finally, on Sunday, she broke down and told her father that she had been molested by Father Agnel. Vitthaldas took her to Vasai police station, and filed a complaint against the priest under section 354 (molestation) of the IPC.
Father Agnel, a resident of Merses village near Vasai, has been associated with Saint Peter’s School for quite some time. Residents were stunned by the news. They said that never before had such an incident happened in the renowned school.
Assistant inspector Ram Shetty of Vasai police, in charge of investigating the case, said, “Agnel has absconded after the complaint was filed. We would be lying in wait for him at Merses village and every other possible place he could have fled to. He would be nabbed soon.”
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