In a disturbing development, police in Chattogram arrested a teacher of the reputed St. Scholastica's Girls' School & College i after he and a fellow teacher were accused, in a case filed by a guardian, of sexually harassing a student of Class-V.
The arrestee is Rakib Uddin, the prime accused in the case filed by the victim’s mother with the city’s Kotwali police station on Tuesday, confirmed OC Obaidul Haque.
According to the case statement, Rakibuddin and the victim met in a classroom setting in 2023 when she was in Class IV at St Scholastica's, aged 10. He was the Science teacher for her class.
The other accused is Surjit Pal, a teacher of class-V.
In a shocking narrative of depraved behaviour and abuse of trust, Rakib and Surjit, over the last 18 months, sexually harassed the student on what would seem to be countless occasions after taking her to or near a washroom on the fifth floor of the school building, according to the victim's mother.
If the student refused to listen to them, they wouldn't hesitate to abuse the power they held over her as her teachers. They would scold her in the classroom or give her poor marks in the exams, according to the statement.
The teachers used to proposition her to be close with them by sending messages on her mobile phone and threatened her not to disclose the matter to anyone. Some of these messages have been submitted into evidence by the victim's family, and Rakib's arrest on Tuesday is understood to have taken place in light of some of this prima facie evidence.
The incident is sure to shake the entire school community, which traces its establishment in the Port City to 1883, by Catholic missionaries originally from France. Over the years, its reputation has suffered for various reasons yet the sordid tale of predatory behaviour that we have courtesy Rakibuddin and Surjit would be the biggest scandal in the school's 141-year history.
It is indeed doubly disturbing that not one, but two teachers in partnership could flout every code of ethical behaviour and lay waste to the sanctity of the teacher-student relationship in such wanton fashion. Their serial abuse only came to light after they seem to have taken things a bit too far in the latest episode, at the start of this week.
On Sunday (June 9), the two teachers tactfully took the victim, now 11, again to the fifth floor near the washroom and molested her. Unlike previous such occasions, this time upon returning home from school, the girl decided to share the ordeal she was living through with her mother.
The mother acted very prudently, taking the time to get the story down pat before lodging the case alleging sexual harassment today with the Kotwali police station, which has jurisdiction over Pathorghata, where St Scholastica's is located, the red facadeof its old building in many ways a famous landmark.
OC Obaidul of Kotwali station said they arrested one of the two accused from the school area on Tuesday, and drives are on to nab the other one.