Former Kutch residential school principal arrested for raping minor student; police hunt trustee, administrator, warden over cover-up.THE FORMER principal of a residential school in Gujarat’s Kutch district was arrested on Saturday, a day after he was booked for allegedly raping a teenage, minor student of the same school on several occasions. The local police are now on the lookout for a school trustee, its administrator and the hostel warden for allegedly covering up the incident, which came to light only a month later. On Friday, the girl’s parents filed a rape complaint.The police inspector investigating the matter told the Indian Express that the accused, who was terminated from service in August after the incident came to light, was nabbed from a town in Anand district on Saturday.In mid-August, a teacher at the school found a pregnancy test kit lying in the lobby of the institute. The teacher took the test kit to the warden of the hostel, who, in turn, checked CCTV footage.The inspector said, “The warden found that the pregnancy test kit had fallen out of the pocket of the school principal, which set off an internal investigation that led them to finding out about the rape. The trustee then dismissed the principal from service. They then informed the parents of the student and sent her home.”The student was not found to be pregnant, police said on Saturday. The Investigation Officer (IO) emphasised that it is incumbent upon authorities of educational institutes to inform the police of any unlawful activities that have taken place on their premises, especially if it has to do with sexual exploitation of minors, said the Investigation Officer (IO).The IO added that the student was allegedly raped multiple times by the accused at an isolated place behind the hostel building. The matter came to light following reports in sections of the media about alleged “shady activities” at the school. When the police began looking into these allegations in a preliminary inquiry, the school authorities submitted an application to the police on September 24, informing them about just the recovery of the kit, with no mention of the sexual assault, said the officer.“We then approached the parents of the girl. They filed a complaint of rape on September 25 that was then converted into an FIR, booking four persons including three men and a woman – respectively the ex-principal, trustee, administrator and hostel warden – under sections of the BNS and POCSO Act,” said the SHO of the jurisdictional police station.