School bus conductor held for molesting 4-year-old girl in Ujjain

The conductor of a school bus who allegedly molested a nursery student before dropping her home in Ujjain has been arrested and booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and various sections of the IPC, police said.

However, the organisation running the school has denied that any such incident occurred.

The crime allegedly occurred on Monday and it was reported at Nanakhera police station by the 4-year-old girl’s grandmother a day later.

According to the complaint, the accused, Mahesh Bhagwan, touched the girl’s private parts and molested her on the pretext of closing the window. The girl was the only student in the bus at the time of the crime as all the other children in the bus had been dropped by then, it said.

Additional superintendent of police (city) Amrendra Singh said a case under section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 376 (rape) and 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides the POCSO Act, has been registered against the accused.

He was presented before a local court on Wednesday which sent him to 14-day judicial custody. Father Anthony Nirlap, the public relations officer of the Catholic diocese which runs the school, has, however, claimed that woman teachers are deployed in every bus and a teacher, Rachna Panchal, was present in the bus on the day. “She has stated about dropping the said student at her stoppage in Vasant Vihar and no such incident occurred,” Nirlap said.