Tamil Nadu police register POCSO case against four staffers of Isha Foundation school

The Tamil Nadu police has registered a first-information report against four administrators and a former student of a school run by the Isha Foundation. The FIR was registered after the parents of another former student alleged that their son had been “molested and harassed” in the school by the fellow student.

The school is run by the Isha Foundation, set up in 1992 by the spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev, known to his followers as Sadhguru.

The FIR, registered at the All Women Police Station in Perur, Coimbatore, records the student’s mother’s allegations that the sexual abuse occurred between the years 2017 and 2019, while her son was enrolled in the school.

Police have registered the case under three sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and one section of the Indian Penal Code.

The sections of POCSO cited in the FIR are Section 10, which pertains to punishment for aggravated assault, section 21(2), which pertains to a failure by any person in charge of an institution to report an offence under the act, and section 9(1), which pertains to compensation that a court may order to be paid to a child after the registration of an FIR. The section of the IPC cited, 342, pertains...

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