In a bizarre incident that highlights the fast deteriorating moral values in schools, two teachers eloped with two minor students and married against the wishes of their parents.
This incident, which sent shockwaves among parents of the schoolchildren, took place at Yerrabalem village in Mangalagiri rural mandal, a few km away from Vijayawada.
The teachers, T. Mounika and P. Lakshmi Tirupatha-mma, took away minor twins, both students of Class VIII in a private school, to a secret location in Vijayawada where they married them.
The police intervened only when the parents of the boys lodged a complaint of kidnap against the teachers. It took two rounds of counselling for the police to convince the teachers and the boys that their marriages are illegal, and thus null and void.
“The boys are minor. The teachers are in their early 20s. They left the school a few months ago after the management pulled them up for moving with the students. One of them is now working as a computer operator, and another is pursuing higher education. We had to do a lot of counselling to convince the teachers and the boys,” said P. Annapoorna Reddy, assistant superintendent of police, Mangalagiri.
Shaik Ameer, father of the boys, alleged that the school management failed to create an atmosphere of learning. “Teachers should be role models. They should discipline students. If teachers themselves resort to illicit relationships, there will be no one to protect students,” he said.
The police said the teachers had been having an affair with the boys for the past one year, but the management noticed it only recently. The school management did not inform the parents of the boys about the affair.
Though the police succeeded in handing over the minor boys to their parents, the teachers remained stubborn arguing that they would wait till the boys turn majors, and would marry them then.
The teachers were let off, though a case has been registered against them. The school management, however, is silent on the whole affair.