Phulbani: Police Sunday arrested a headmaster of a Girls’ High School for allegedly misbehaving with a class-X girl of the residential institution here in Kandhamal district.
The victim is a student of Paknagaon residential school here. The incident came to the fore after the victim’s father lodged a complaint against the HM at the Sadar police station. The accused HM has been identified as Kashinath Behera.
After the complaint, District Collector Brundha D swung into action and also suspended the accused HM. Moreover, a matron of the school was also dismissed on charges of dereliction of duty.
According to reports, the incident occurred March 7. Over some work, the girl student requested the matron to give her a mobile phone to communicate with her parents. However, the matron didn’t pay attention in this regard and asked her to approach the HM.
The girl then went to the official quarters of the headmaster to seek his permission to talk to her parents. However, the HM called him into his quarters and gave her his phone to call her parents.
When the girl requested to go outside his room and speak, he denied and asked her to continue speaking inside his room. Later, while the girl was speaking to her parents, she allegedly touched her inappropriately and misbehaved with her when she objected his advances.
On returning home after finishing her exam, the girl narrated her ordeal to her father who lodged a complaint in this regard. Acting on the complaint, police have initiated a probe into the incident.
On the other hand, the HM pleaded innocent and said that the complaint was baseless.
PNN