Guitar teacher faces music for ''molesting'' student; arrested

A 55-year-old guitar teacher from Mumbai has been arrested for allegedly molesting a female

student, then a minor and who flew back from the US more than a decade after the crime and filed a complaint against him,

police said on Monday. A day after his arrest, the accused was on Monday

produced before a local court which released him on a cash bail of Rs 15,000.

The victim was around nine years old when the accused began molesting her. She later migrated to the US for higher

studies when she was 12, a police official said. The accused sexually abused the victim for three years

between 2007 and 2010 at her home in suburban Andheri when he used to give her music lessons, the official said.

The victim, now around 21 years old and studying at a college in the US, arrived here on Sunday and lodged an FIR

against the accused. After recording her statement, the Oshiwara police

arrested the accused, the official said. The victim, in her statement, alleged that the teacher

used to molest her and speak in vulgar language during music lessons, he said.

"We arrested the teacher under Indian Penal Code sections 354 (molestation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended

to insult modesty of a woman) and 506 (criminal intimidation). "It is an old case of the offence that took place

between 2007 and 2010, before the victim went to the US," Oshiwara police station's senior inspector Dayanand Bangar

said. The accused was produced before the metropolitan court

in Andheri. Advocate Shambhu Jha, who appeared for the teacher,

said, "He was released on a Rs 15,000 cash bail. We told the the court that the alleged incident took place between 2007

and 2010 and appears highly doubtful." "Since the victim is undergoing psychiatric treatment,

there is a possibility she may have wrongly taken the name of the accused as she was familiar with him in the past," Jha

said, pleading for bail for his client. The accused has an excellent track record and

unblemished image, and has given guitar lessons to many high- profile people, Jha told the court.

The police were trying to find out if the accused molested other students also, another official said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)