Mumbai, Sep 23 (Mid-Day): The Mira Road police in Thane district have arrested the owner of a coaching class for allegedly molesting a nine-year-old girl at his residence.

Chanchal Kumar Singh alias Rai (42), the owner of Oxford Coaching Classes, was nabbed on Wednesday night from his residence. The accused is also a local secretary of a leading political party and allegedly writes for a Mira Road-based newspaper.

“We have arrested Singh under sections 354 (assault or criminal force with intent to outrage modesty of woman), with sections 7 and 11 of the protection of children from sexual offences act 2012 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He is under police custody till September 23,” said Sneha Jadhav, investigation officer of the Mira Road police station.

According to police, Singh and the victim are neighbours. According to the girl’s statement, Singh would often call her to his bedroom as she played with his children and touch her inappropriately.

In her statement to her family and to the family doctor, the girl said she was molested several times in the past year. “My daughter had become silent and was not feeling well for the past one month. Even her teachers observed that she was not concentrating on her studies. After being alerted of her behaviour, my wife took her to our family doctor.

On being examined and questioned by the doctor, she blurted out that our neighbour, who she called ‘uncle’ (Singh) had been molesting her since a year,” said the girl’s father, who then approached the local police with the help of a social activist.