Bangalore, February 11: Little did the alert school teachers realise that they were about to unmask Josef Fritzl of Bilekahalli on Bannerghatta Road when they noticed something wrong with their brilliant student.
The 14-year-old girl, who consistently scored 100% in studies, maintained a stoic silence to repeated enquiries by concerned teachers — until a medical examination revealed that she was pregnant.
The medical examination report forced the girl to reveal the true colour of her stepfather. The lubricious man, Arumugam, 37, was arrested and remanded to seven days in police custody.
The man, a driver with L&T, had been raping the girl for the past three months, the victim reportedly told her mother. He had threatened to commit suicide after murdering her if she exposed him.
Scared, the girl suffered her ordeal in silence. Every night she, like a loving daughter, served dinner to her tormentor, it was revealed.
The girl also knew that her mother trusted the man whom she had married 12 years ago, after divorcing her first husband.
The teenager’s suffering began when Arumugam took her to his native village in Shimoga three and-a-half months ago. Though both of them were sleeping separately, the man — allegedly in an inebriated state — gagged her and forced himself on the hapless child late in the night.
After the incident, a tearful Arumugam pleaded forgiveness, and requested her not to reveal the incident to anyone. But he kept repeating the act, police said.
The normally active girl gradually withdrew into a shell. She lost interest in studies, and her rank in class tests dropped. It was then that her teachers took notice of the otherwise studious standard IX student.
When the teachers failed to understand the student’s problem, they informed her mother. The mother, too, did not succeed.
A few days later, the girls started showing signs of nausea. The mother suspected indigestion and took the teenager to a nearby private clinic, where the medical examination revealed she was 14 weeks pregnant.
Inspector HS Parameshwar of Mico Layout police said the accused was subjected to a medical test.
—Agencies