A 37-year-old van driver and a 55-year-old helper of a private school in Coimbatore were arrested on Friday for allegedly sexually abusing a four-year-old girl student. The incident reportedly happened in the school van in Karamadai, in Coimbatore. 

According to the police, the girl, who was an LKG student in the school, travelled by the school van every day. On Tuesday, the van driver took a longer route to her house, to ensure that she was the last child to be dropped off and allegedly injected her with a sedative and then assaulted her. The girl narrated the ordeal after her parents coaxed her to talk to them. The parents then approached the Thudiyalur police who took it to the notice of the school.

However, the school authorities allegedly tried to delay the inquiry which led to other parents also demanding action against the two employees. After a group of parents gathered in front of the school, the pressure mounted on the management and they then handed over the driver R Govindaraj and the helper Marimuthu to the police.

Based on a complaint from the parents, the police have registered a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and also under section 109 (Abetment) of the IPC. The accused have been remanded to judicial custody.

Speaking to TNM, a police officer at the Thudiyalur AWPS said that there no other complaints of a similar nature have reached them so far. “We got one complaint and acted on that. First round of questioning did not reveal any other complaints on the two men. We have remanded both of them now,” she said.

A report in the Times of India showed an increasing trend in the number of POCSO cases in Coimbatore- Rural. While 22 cases were registered under POCSO in 2016, the number spiked to 34 cases in 2017. The SP had also stated that this spike was due to increased awareness among the people to report such cases to the police.