In a twist to the case of alleged sexual exploitation of some minor girls, a teacher in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district Tuesday claimed he is now being framed as an accused in the same crime to "silence" him.
Abdul Hamid Ganaie, a teacher in a girls' high school in Wanigam (Pattan) tehsil of Baramulla, claimed he had sent a letter in 2008 to the district magistrate alerting him about alleged sexual exploitation of minor girls by some government officials.
Ganaie told IANS that the district magistrate had referred his complaint to the district police chief for investigations.
"Two days later, a rape case was filed against me in the police station at the behest of the girl student who I wanted to protect against exploitation," he claimed.
Ganaie alleged that in order to implicate him in what he claims is a false case, police in Baramulla recorded two statements of the girl under section 164-A of the criminal procedure code.
According to the FIR, the girl alleged that Ganaie had waylaid her near an orchard while she was returning home from school and made an unsuccessful bid to rape her. She repeated the statement before a magistrate.
In her second statement made under section 164-A, the girl told the magistrate that she had been raped by the teacher three times.
Legal experts say negating a previous statement made before a magistrate is perjury which is a criminal offence.
A departmental inquiry ordered on the instructions of director of school education did not find any substance in the girl's accusation because the incident took place on a day the school was closed.
"The sequence of events and overlapping of the statements given by the girl (victim) led the quorum to believe that the girl, in a state of confusion, intends to involve the accused teacher in a false and fabricated case and use it as cover for her reported involvement in some sex scandal," the departmental inquiry concluded.
The teacher has alleged that a powerful nexus of people running sexual exploitation rackets are targeting him so that nobody dares act as a whistle blower in the future.
