A case has been lodged against a teacher at a state-run children’s home in Gaibandha on suspicion of sexually harassing a teenage girl, who later attempted suicide, sources said yesterday.
On Wednesday night, the girl filed the case, under the women and children repression act, against Jahangir Arif Prodhan, a resource teacher at a government shishu paribar in the town’s Dhanghara area, officer-in-charge of sadar police station, Gopal Chandra Chakrabartee, said. He said charges will be filed after an investigation, and the police were trying to arrest the suspect, who went into hiding after filing of the case.
Meanwhile, the teacher was suspended yesterday after a primary investigation, said M Shahidur Rahman, deputy director of the Department of Social Services (DSS) that runs the home.
According to sources, Prodhan, a teacher of Gaibandha Government High School who is attached to the DSS’s “combined sight and disable programme”, was given the additional charge of deputy superintendent of the shishu paribar in 2008.
At one point, Prodhan developed an illicit relationship with a girl at the home. When the authorities came to know about the affair, they released him from his post, but he apparently kept on seeing the girl, now a student of class 10. On May 30, Prodhan called the girl to his rented house in town andallegedly violated the girl when his family was out.
Her friends later reported the incident to the authorities at the home. On Sunday, the alleged victim took an overdose of sleeping pills.
