MillenniumPost
Bengal

Accused teachers remanded to police custody till Dec 15

Kolkata: The two accused teachers in the sexual abuse case at GD Birla Centre for Education in Ranikuthi in South Kolkata were remanded to police custody till December 15 by the designated Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) court.
The POCSO court also paid heed to the public prosecutor's plea on behalf of the police for recording the statement of the four-year-old victim. The permission for forensic examination of the victim's clothes was also granted by the court on Monday. The two accused — Avishek Roy and Mohammad Mofijuddin, who were arrested on Friday, were remanded to two days police custody by Alipore court and were directed to be produced at the POCSO designated court on Monday.
Appealing for police custody of the accused, chief public prosecutor Radhakanta Mukherjee reasoned that the police need to collect more evidence in the case for which custody of the accused persons is necessary. "This is a serious case and POCSO is very sensitive. So we want to proceed carefully in the investigation. The Women Grievance Cell of the detective department of Kolkata Police has taken over investigation of the case from Jadavpur police station on Sunday. The medico-legal examination of the accused needs to be done. We need custody of the duo for the sake of collecting more evidence. The two may be taken to some places for the sake of investigation," he said.
Defense counsel Tirthankar Roy objected to the plea for police custody and said that the medico-legal examination of the victim does not require police custody of the accused. "The victim has already identified the two accused from a photograph that was shown to her. So the question of reconstruction with the accused does not arise," Roy said. However, his objection was turned down by the judge. A team from the Women Grievance Cell also visited GD Birla School on Monday and spoke to some employees of the school. The police have constituted a special committee to look into the allegations of negligence and false representation of the school's affiliation to ISCE, initiated against principal Sharmila Nath on Sunday. The team comprises officials from the state Education department, West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights, ICSE Board Delhi and Kolkata Police.
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