A 42-year-old school van driver was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl over the past 15 days. The girl was studying in a prominent school at Sector-31 of the city.
The accused driver was identified as lalit Kumar. According to the police, the girl is a nursery student. The shocking incident came to light after the petrified girl revealed her woes to her parents on Tuesday, saying that her school van driver was molesting her for the past fifteen days and was touching her inappropriately as well. He also threatened her against telling anyone about her ordeal.
The parents of the victim immediately took her to the police and an FIR was lodged at the Sector-40 police station, following which the police nabbed the accused driver on Wednesday from village Kanhai.
The driver would drop her last. He used to insist that the girl sits in the front seat with him after dropping the other students, the police said. During questioning, Kumar confessed to the crime. He was produced in a city court on Thursday and sent to judicial custody.
"The driver stays with his family in Village Kanhai and was an alcoholic. We have arrested him under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offices (POCSO) and the Indian Penal Code," said Sudhir Kumar, the SHO of Sector-40 police station.
It was the second case of crime against children within two days that was registered at Sector-40 police station. In the first case, city police had arrested a 28-year-old driver on Wednesday for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl for the last four days after holding her captive in his rented house in Tigra village.