Hisar temple priest booked under POCSO Act for sexually harassing schoolgirls

Deepender Deswal

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Hisar, February 7

In a shocking incident, a temple priest was accused of sexually harassing some schoolgirls inside a religious place at a village in the district. The matter came to light when a women’s safety team of the Hisar police went to the village yesterday to spread awareness among children in a government school and interacted with students.

The police has detained the priest and has registered a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against him.

Sources claimed that about four days ago, the priest took a girl, aged about 12, to a room in the temple on the pretext of offering prasad and sexually harassed her. Three more girls revealed similar harrowing experiences during their visit to the temple.

The villagers had invited the priest, aged about 60, from Uttar Pradesh about two years ago, and had built two rooms and a kitchen for his convenience. They used to offer cash, valuables and other items to him.

One of the girls revealed that he took her to a room inside the temple and made her sit on his lap and touched her inappropriately. Police sources said following the disclosure by the victims, the father of one of the victims had lodged an FIR today.

Hisar SP Mohit Handa said the matter came to light when the team visited the school to educate the students about women’s safety and find out if there were any incidents of eve-teasing and molestation. “The Child Welfare Committee was called to counsel the girls,” he added.