Sangrur :  A 50-year-old teacher was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for raping his 14-year-old student in Punjabs Sangrur district, 58 km from Patiala, on Thursday. “It is one of the cases where a pious sacred relationship has been ravished, trust has been betrayed and social values have been impaired”, Pronouncing the judgment, additional sessions judge Tejwinder Singh said.

Gurjant Singh, a mathematics teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Namole, in Sunam sub division of Sangrur, was arrested on February 14 on charges of raping a Class-8 student.Gurjant, who lives in the same village, called the girl to his house on the pretext of evaluating her notebook on December 31, 2012, and raped her. He also threatened to flunk her in mathematics and malign her and her familys reputation if she tried to resist or told anyone about the incident.

At the time of the incident, Gurjants wife and son were in Rajasthan, where the latter was preparing for engineering entrance exams at a coaching centre. His daughter is pursuing an MBBS course.On February 8, Gurjant tried to molest the student on the campus. However, some students saw him and informed other teachers, who called her parents.

“Needless to say that society survives on social values and commitment by social beings to conform to such values… certain persons, by their inhuman conduct towards women, bring shame to society at large,” said the judgment. A fine of Rs. 10,000 was also slapped on the convict.

The case was initially registered under Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The police have now added to the FIR charges under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act, 2012.