The parents of five girl students of a high school in Vijayanagar staged a protest on Saturday, accusing a teacher of sexual harassment.
The parents of the class 9 students along with activists of a pro-Kannada group alleged that the children were harassed by H G Basavaraj, a Hindi teacher at Sangamesha Vidyakendra Proudha Shaale run by Siddanganga Mutt of Tumkur. Basavaraj was appointed on July 5 to teach Hindi.
“For the past one week, our children refused to go to school. Assuming that they were absenting from class, we admonished them. It was then one of the girls complained about their new Hindi teacher.”
The teacher had held them back after school hours on the pretext of conducting special classes and misbehaved with them, said Ramya (name changed), one of the five girls, in her complaint to the police. He had threatened the girls of dire consequences if they spoke about it, she added.
They complained to Principal Shivakumar Swamy about the teacher, but no action was taken, she said.
During the protest, the teacher is said to have fled the school through a back door, sources said. But the principal claimed that the teacher was away and refused to divulge details about him, they said. When he refused to reveal the cellphone number of the teacher, the protesters alleged that the principal was shielding the teacher.
However, the principal told Deccan Herald that he came to know about the harassment only on Saturday and he declined to comment without inquiring the teacher. The parents have asked the school management to issue transfer certificates as they did not want the girls to continue in the same school. The Vijayanagar police, who have registered a case, said they would arrest the teacher and probe the incident.
