SHIMLA: A Chamba special court on Wednesday convicted a government primary schoolteacher on charges of rape and sexual harassment of eight minor girl students of classes III, IV and V, and sentenced him to life imprisonment and rigorous imprisonment (RI) for various periods — seven years, three years and three years — concurrently.The court of Special Judge (session judge) Chamba Rajesh Tomar , convicted the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.While convicting him of sexual harassment under Section 354 (A)of IPC, the court awarded him RI of three years with a fine of Rs 10,000. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment and fine of Rs 50,000 for raping a minor girl below 12 years of age under Section 376 (2) (f) of IPC. For criminal intimidation under Section 506 of IPC, court awarded him RI for seven years with fine of Rs 25,000.The court also sentenced him to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 50,000 under Section 6 of Pocso Act and RI for three years with fine of Rs 20,000 under Section 12 of the Pocso Act.The school’s centre head teacher too was handed out RI terms of one year and six months for failing to inform the superiors and police despite knowing about the crime under Section 202 of IPC and Section 21 (2) of Pocso Act, respectively.As per the complaint filed with the police, 13 students had said that their teacher, then 53, used to show them pornographic videos, tell them obscene things and threatened them with dire consequences if they revealed his behaviour to anyone. The child helpline also added that the teacher used to touch them inappropriately.A fresh case under Sections 354 and 506 of the IPC and Sections 8, 10 and 12 of the Pocso Act was filed against the accused last year. At that time, the schoolteacher was already in judicial custody for molesting a Class VIII student.To prove the case against the accused, 34 prosecution witnesses were examined. On the completion of investigation, challan was presented in the court for trial.

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