A teacher of a primary school on the southern city fringes was arrested on Thursday for allegedly molesting a Class IV student.

The arrest followed a complaint from the girl’s parents.

Police said Sankar Routh, the teacher-in-charge of Sarvodaya Hindi Vidyalaya, Rabindranagar, had called the girl to his room around 10am.

Within a few seconds, the girl ran out, weeping. She narrated her ordeal to the other teachers and a few parents who were present.

The teachers and the parents gheraoed Routh, who denied the charge. The guardians then dragged him out of his room and allegedly beat him up before informing the police.

A section of the guardians told the police that Routh had committed such crimes earlier, too. They repeatedly asked him to mend his ways but the teacher did not pay heed to their pleas.

“He used to call students to his room in the school under one pretext or another and misbehave with them,” said a parent.

The superintendent of South 24-Parganas police, Ajey Ranade, said Routh had been arrested following a “specific complaint” from the girl’s mother.

“We have started a case against the teacher-in-charge. A preliminary investigation revealed that Routh had been behaving indecently with the students for quite some time. But the parents did not lodge any complaint. Today’s complaint was the first against Routh,” said Ranade.

Sarvodaya Hindi Vidyalaya remained closed for the day following the arrest.

Demanding that the teacher-in-charge be punished, local CPM legislator Mursalin Mollah said: “I will talk to the parents and try to bring back normality in the school.”

Routh will be produced in Alipore court on Thursday.

In May, an allegation of student molestation was brought against B.N. Das, the owner-rector of Children’s Academy in Garia’s Regent Park area.

The mother of a Class II student had complained that she had seen Das misbehave with her daughter.

Das later committed suicide by hanging himself in his house. The school remained closed for a week.