PATNA: A senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer posted as a joint commissioner of the income tax department in Patna was arrested early on Wednesday morning for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl from Sikkim at her hostel.
Police said the officer, Ram Babu Gupta, has been a patron at the Eklavya Super 50 coaching institute, which the girl has been attending for about a year. the institutes imparts coaching for medical and engineering entrance examinations.
According to the FIR the girl lodged at Digha police station, the alleged incident took place on Saturday evening, when she was alone in her room at the hostel. Gupta came into the room and sexually assaulted her, she said in the FIR lodged on Tuesday night.
“After speaking with other inmates of this girls’ hostel, we find the charges levelled against the accused prima facie true. He has been arrested and a probe is in progress,” said DSP (law and order) Shivli Nomani.
Gupta, who is an IRS officer of 2005 batch, denied the charges. “I had rebuked the girl for posting her photograph on Facebook. She was hurt and so she is targeting me with this charge. Her father has been angry with me because I did not heed to his requests for securing her admission in a top college in Siligudi,” he told journalists while in police custody.
The girl had called her father, a policeman working in Sikkim, asking him to come down to Patna immediately. “When my daughter protested against his advances and wept, he gave her assurances that he would marry her. He also tried to give her Rs 1,000. My trust in the institute is broken,” he said. Gupta had also been indulging in “obscene acts” with her when she was attending classes, he added.
Eklavya Super 50 coaching institute has an MoU with the government of Sikkim to impart coaching to underprivileged students from the state free of cost. Currently there are nearly 20 students from Sikkim receiving coaching at this institute.