It’s official ---- schools are no longer safe havens for children outside their homes. The Vanrai police arrested the watchman of a school in Goregaon (East) on Tuesday for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old Std IX student of the school. This is the fourth instance this year in which an accused has been booked under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. While one of the incidents took place within a school bus, another case, that of sodomy, took place inside a madarsa.

According to the police, the accused Harish Tiwari (50) lured the student into his cabin inside the school premises and molested her. The incident took place on January 19 after school hours. The girl, in her statement, said that she had an examination that day. Finding the paper easy, she completed answering it half-an-hour ahead of time and left the classroom while her colleagues were still giving the exam. She was waiting for her friends outside the classroom when the watchman asked her to sit and wait in his cabin.