Schoolteacher alleged of raping std VII student produced in Khed court

An angry mob gathered outside the Khed court, where a teacher, arrested for allegedly raping a VII standard student of the Zilla Parishad school in Kaman village, was produced on Thursday.

Prabhakar Burse (42), a resident of Rajgurunagar, was arrested by the Khed police on Wednesday evening from Ghodegaon bus stand on charges of raping a student in the store room of the school during class hours on December 9.

The complaint was filed by the victim’s mother on December 18. Burse, who was produced before the judicial magistrate (first class), SC Pathare, kept quiet during the court proceedings. But when the court asked whether he faced any problems with the police, he responded, “No, I haven’t committed the crime. I am innocent.”

The police had a tough time controlling the crowd on Thursday. The villagers hurled verbal abuses at Burse, and the police had to call in additional personnel to control the mob and prevent any untoward incident.

Burse’s lawyer, Hanumant Pokalkar, submitted three applications before the magistrate and asked permission to interact with Burse for five minutes, which was granted.

Arguing for seven-day police custody of the accused, assistant public prosecutor Dilip Bahiram said, “The victim’s medical test report is positive and the nature of the crime is heinous. A teacher is more like a god to a student and a person engaging in such an act is unpardonable. Moreover, the accused was absconding after the case, so the medical test has to be
carried out on him.”

Defence lawyer Pokalkar opposed the police custody saying that Burse had been falsely implicated in the case. “The case must be handled by a higher police official and the press must be banned from publishing it,” he said.

When asked about his private talks with the accused, Pokalkar said, “I have asked my client to co-operate with the police.”

Investigating officer Seema Dhakane said, “We had formed two teams, one was watching his residence, while the other team went to Kalyan after we got a tip-off. However, he managed to flee. We were tracking his mobile and zeroed in on him at Ghodegaon bus stand on Wednesday. We are scrutinising his records and found that he was asked to resign from some other schools after he was accused of molestation. We are also trying to check whether any other teacher assisted him in the crime as a complaint was not registered by the school authorities even after they came to know about the
incident,” she said.