Students protest sexual misconduct by teacher in Kerala

Students of an aided school at Kozhikode in North Kerala are up in arms demanding action against a teacher alleging sexual misconduct.

As many as 31 girl students of the higher secondary school situated in Kozhikode city had lodged police complaints against a teacher a couple of months ago and three separate police cases were registered under the POCSO Act at the Kozhikode Town police station against him.

The students, who staged a protest in front of the school, alleged that the Botany teacher used to send lewd messages on mobile and touch them in an inappropriate manner.

"Even a couple of months after we registered the police case, there was no sincere effort from the police to arrest the teacher. Now we are facing pressure from other teachers to withdraw the complaints. We have genuine fears that there would be vindictive actions from the teachers against us," said one of the students.

Meanwhile, the station house officer of the Kozhikode Town Police station told DH that the teacher was absconding. The accused is not using a mobile phone and not withdrawing money from ATMs. Hence we could not locate him yet even as we conducted searches at his house," said the officer.

The school authorities preferred to maintain silence on the matter.