PUNE: The Pune police told a city court on Thursday that the principal of a well-known English medium school here, arrested for molesting a 14-year-old student, was also involved in an “incident” while he was principal of a school in Solapur. The police further told the court that an internal school inquiry committee in Solapur had sent the principal for “observation” to a geriatric care home in Pune.“We are investigating why he was assigned the principal’s role in the Pune school despite his three-year suspension in the Solapur matter,” senior inspector Sayaji Gaware told TOI on Thursday. A police team is being sent to Solapur for collecting documents and details of the earlier case, he added.However, when contacted, a member of the internal inquiry committee set up to look into the Pune incident told TOI, “There was no case of molestation involving the principal (who is also a priest) in Solapur. No inquiry committee had been set up there. The committee in Pune examined the incident that happened here and sent the principal to the geriatric care home for five years and placed him under observation. This was before the Pune police registered an offence in the case.”The city police also told the court that they have received information about some more students having been molested in the school here and that they are investigating these claims. The police made this statement while seeking custodial remand of the principal, who was arrested from Chembur in Mumbai on Wednesday, for an offence registered against him on September 14 for allegedly showing an adult video clip to a 14-year-old student on March 10 and 12 this year and touching him inappropriately.The police’s remand report stated that the principal “escaped” from the geriatric home after the offence was registered against him in Pune. The police told the court that they wanted to recover the cellphone allegedly used by the principal for showing the adult video clip to the student and wanted to establish whether he had hidden or destroyed evidence critical to the case after the registration of the offence on September 14.Police sub-inspector G B Mhaske produced the principal before special judge G P Agarwal, who ordered his remand in police custody till September 23. The police are searching for the school counsellor, who has been booked for not reporting the incident to the police even after being approached by the student with his grievance at the end of academic year 2017-18. The student is now studying in Std IX.The report stated that the police probe was also focused on whether the principal was assisted by any other person in the alleged crime(s) and whether the counsellor had a role in concealing information about other victims of suspected molestation.The principal’s arrest came after the police managed to trace his whereabouts and intercepted a private luxury bus in Chembur, in which he was travelling from Pune to Ahmedabad, on Wednesday morning. The police want to investigate where he was headed to in Ahmedabad and where he was planning to go from there, the remand report added.Gaware said, “The principal told the police that he has been removed from service by the school. We are now seeking documents relating to his dismissal from the school management as part of an evidence in the case.”A police officer said, “About a month ago, the student told his parents about the abuse, but fearing repercussions from the school, the parents decided not to act on it. The family, however, confided in a friend who told a social worker about it. The social worker informed the police about the abuse and we approached the family. After a lot of counselling, the parents agreed to file the complaint.”(With inputs from Gitesh Shelke)

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