CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Government has suspended the Principal and eight teachers of the Government Senior Secondary School, Durjanpur, in Jind district following reports of alleged sexual exploitation of a girl student by them. Also, five lecturers and a master of the school have been transferred to Gurgaon and Mewat districts, the Deputy Commissioner of Jind, M. P. Bansal, said on Thursday evening.

In a statement here, he said the district administration and the police swung into action on getting the information about the alleged sexual exploitation of a student and police parties have been sent to different places to arrest the absconding teachers. He said the residents of Durjanpur village were feeling hurt over the manner in which some TV channels had telecast the news about the unfortunate incident. He asserted that the issue had been exaggerated by some TV channels and a newspaper.

He also denied that there had been an adverse effect on the attendance of girl students in schools of adjoining villages. He categorically denied reports that 17 girl students of the school had allegedly been raped by teachers. The figure of victims had been exaggerated to give colour to the story, he alleged.

Mr. Bansal added that the residents of the village, members of the village panchayat and prominent citizens of the area were satisfied over the manner in which the police and the district administration acted after getting the information about the incident. He hoped that the accused would soon be arrested.

Those who have been suspended in the case included Chhotu Lal, Principal of school, Hazuridas Bhatia-Demonstrator Physical Education (DPE), Khazan Singh, Science Master, Ram Kumar Punia, Mathematics lecturer, Krishan Chander and Krishan Kumar, both Social Studies masters, Tek Chand, Hindi teacher, Ajit Singh, Drawing teacher and Rameshwar. Those who have been transferred included Ram Kumar, Social Studies master, Jagdish Chander, lecturer in Economics, Surjya Dev, lecturer in Sanskrit, Jai Pal, lecturer in History, Balbir Singh, lecturer in English and Mrs. Jangjit Rani. The entire staff of the school have been replaced by appointing new teachers.

Meanwhile, the Haryana Finance Minister, Birender Singh, who represents Uchana Assembly constituency in which Durjanpur falls, said here that the two absconding teachers and conspirators involved in the case would soon be arrested as the police had launched a hunt for them. He said that he was in constant touch with the villagers who had constituted a committee to pursue the matter with the administration and the members of this committee had expressed satisfaction over the manner in which the administration had taken up the issue. He described the incident as very unfortunate and unprecedented.

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