New Delhi, August 30
The Delhi’s education department today suspended mathematics teacher Uma Khurana after she was arrested by the police on charges of blackmailing girls and filming them in compromising positions.

Education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely issued the statement when a large number of agitated parents and locals of old Delhi went on a rampage outside Sarvodya Kanya Vidyalaya on the Asaf Ali road in the Daryaganj area, where the teacher was posted. The teacher used to teach mathematics to students from classes VI to X.

Parents and locals gathered in front of the school this morning after a TV channel aired a sting operation showing the teacher allegedly forcing girl students into prostitution and to act in pornographic films.

The protesters set ablaze two vehicles, damaged a number of other vehicles and public property and pelted police personnel with stones before being lathicharged, a senior police official said. Nine persons, including a municipal councillor, were injured in the violence.

The protesters forced the closure of nearby markets and blocked vehicular traffic in the area.

The racket was exposed after one of the girls approached the television news channel.

The minister confirmed that the girl was not the student of the school. She was enrolled with some other government school, he added.

The exposé purportedly showed victims telling the TV reporter that a mathematics teacher had allegedly filmed them in a compromising position and forced them into prostitution.

The girls claimed that the teacher, Uma Khurana, blackmailed them by threatening to pass on the CDs to their parents if they did not cooperate with her, police official said.

The government suspended the teacher immediately after the exposé and ordered an inquiry into the matter, the minister said.

Sources said the teacher earlier taught at Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Vivek Vihar, in the trans-Yamuna area. She was transferred to the Asaf Ali road school in mid-June this year.

The minister said a committee had been constituted by the department to investigate the case. The committee will be headed by deputy director, education.

The teacher will be terminated from government job if found guilty, he said.

Sources said her service book and other records were in the possession of the Vivek Vihar school.

The teacher reportedly used to stay on mobile phone during school hours and allegedly offered jobs to students belonging to poor families.

When girls reported this to the school principal, she called a parent-teacher meeting and advised parents to make a complaint against the teacher.

However they refused to follow the principal’s advice saying that it could tarnish the reputation of their children.