Case primary details

Fact finding date

Case Incident details

Case summary

Sonvarsha middle school is locateed in the village Sonvarsha, district of Gaya of Bihar state and it comes under Paraiya police station area. There are 50% of Scheduled Caste students who come from surrounding villages are studying in the school. At present 150 students are enrolled in the school. The details of the teaching and non-teaching staffs of the school are as follows: 03 cooks namely Rampyari Devi, Teyarti Devi and Shanti Devi and 05 teachers namely Mr.YugalKishorPrabhari-Principal, Mr. Naveen Kumar, Ms.Nirmala Devi, Ms.Poonam Devi and Shiv Kumar-accused.

The victim Puja Kumari is a 16 year old minor, daughter of ShambhuChoudhry belonging to Pasi caste (Scheduled Caste) R/o Sonvarsha village, PO- BalaBigaha, PS- Paraiya of Gaya district of Bihar State. Pooja was a student of class 8 of Sonvarsha middle school. She was a regular student and very committed in her studies and scores good marks. The accused Shiv Kumar S/o, Raj Kumar belonging to OBC community caste is also from the same village and a teacher at Sonvarsha middle school.

Like every other day, on 25-11-2016 Friday also, Puja have gone to school and was giving annual exam. During the exam her exam sheet had got detached, so she went to office room in the school and asked a teacher who was there Naveen Singh for adhesive; he then sent Puja to Shiv Kumar who is also a teacher in the school. When Puja asked Shiv Kumar for adhesive, he asked her to take it from the room above. As he directed, she also went up to the room to take adhesive. After taking adhesive, when Puja was coming down from the stairs, Shiv Kumar came and pulled Puja into the room which was adjacent to stairs and closed the room from inside. He started to threaten Puja that if she screams he will kill her, if she tells anyone about the incident then he will shoot and kill her parents too. By saying this he forcefully pushed Puja on the floor, naked her and raped her for 10-15 minutes. Still out of pain, she started screaming.

By hearing Puja Kumari’s scream her schoolmates Raviranjan also known as Fonu Kumar s/o Vijay Das and Abhishek Kumar s/o Vinod Yadav have pushed and opened the door and saw Shiv Kumar raping Puja kumari. Thereafter Puja Kumari somehow wore her clothes and ran away to her parents who were cutting the crops in the fields. And she told everything to her parents about the incident. Puja’s father Sambhu rushed to the school and started asking why he has done this to his daughter. On this Shiv Kumar ignored him and shouted by saying he didn’t have time to talk and asked him to come tomorrow and immediately he went off by his two wheeler.

In the meantime, the villagers also came over there to school and started shouting in front of the school. They were inquiring with the other teachers about Shiv Kumar and started fighting with them. The teachers also started arguing with the villagers it continued for long time so the day gone in that and finally they returned back to the village.

On the next day on 26-11-2016 Saturday Shambhu along few villagers reached the school at 9:00 am. But Shiv Kumar was not available. He met with another teacher Naveen Singh and told him that he wants to meet the Principal of the school. Naveen responded that the principal is on leave so asked him to come on Monday. But Shambhu urged that he wants to speak to the principal as it is related to his daughters dignity. Then he was made to talk over phone to the principal Yugal Kishore. Shambhu narrated the whole incident about his daughter Puja’s rape by Shiv kumar to the principal. Principal responded that he is away and asked him to come on Monday and he also promised that he will inquire the incident.

The same day on 26-11-2016 after knowing about the incident the watchman of Paraiya Police Station Mr.LalBahadur Yadav s/o Mukhlal Yadav, R/o Sonvarsha, PO- BalaBigaha, PS- Paraiya of Gaya district of Bihar state, has suggested ShambuChoudhry and his wife Gyanti Devi (victim’s parents) to file FIR in the police station. On this the villagers interfered and manipulated the victims’ parents saying that it is our internal matter and we will inquire it and then we’ll inform the Police In-charge’.

On 28-11-2016 the Principal YugalKishor organised the meeting with the victim Puja Kumari and her parents ShambhuChoudhry and Gyanti Devi, teacher Naveen Singh, accused Shiv Kumar and NanhuChoudhry who is the ward member of Sonvarsha village, the witnesses of the incident Raviranjan Kumar/Fonu and Abhishek Kumar who witnessed the incident and few villagers. He inquired the victims and witnessed and during the inquiry it was found that Preeti was raped by Shiv Kumar.  Immediately the villagers who gathered in the meeting started beating Shiv Kumar for his misbehaving with the minor girl. No sooner, MunniPaswan s/o Doman Paswan of Sonvarsha village rang the Police of Paraiya Police Station and informed about the incident. He also informed to some media about the incident. Within 45 minutes the police and media arrived at the spot and took the accused Shiv Kumar, victim Puja Kumari, her mother Gyanti Devi and her father ShambhuChoudhry to the Paraiya Police Station. The police arrested the accused Shiv Kumar and sent Puja Kumari to Chandouti Women Police Station along with her parents. There Sub Inspector MeeraKumari took Puja’s statement and registered FIR and thereafter SI MeeraKumari took Puja Kumari to Prabhavati Hospital at Gaya for medical inspection. On 28-11-2016 around 4:45pm medical inspection has been done.

The police have taken statement of the victim u/s 164 and have provided the copy of FIR, medical report, final report and daily report of case proceedings to the victim’s family. The police has charged the accused u/s 376 of IPC, 4 POCSO Act and 3(1)(x), 3(1)(w), 3(2)(v) SC/ST PoA Act, 1989. As a result the accused is in the prison.