A sweeper, Tarun Kumar, 22, in a Panipat school was arrested on Friday arrested for molesting a 9-year-old girl student in the toilet of The Millennium School.

The accused according to the police is a resident of Rakesh Nagar and was working with the school for the past three years.

Hindustantimes reports that on Thursday, the family members along with parents of other students held a protest outside the school and demanded arrest of the accused.

They also sought action against school authorities for their alleged failure to ensure the safety of children. Police have also booked school principal Amita Kochhar under Section 120 B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

After the day-long protest, police took all sweepers in custody. Subsequently, one of the sweepers admitted to having committed the crime.

The incident comes a fortnight after a bus conductor allegedly killed a seven-year-old boy by slitting his throat at the Ryan International School in Gurgaon.

The parents of the girl said, “On Wednesday around 9am, we got a call from the school authorities that our daughter is crying and does not want to take the exam. We reached school and brought her home.

“When we changed her clothes, we noticed some scratches on her shoulder and lashes on her neck. By the evening, she told us that a sweeper in green T-shirt caught her in the toilet and tried to rape her, but she ran outside the toilet.”

However, school principal Amita Kochhar said, “I don’t know when exactly the incident took place, but before the exam she complained about vomiting and said she cannot take the exam, so we called her parents.”