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General News of Monday, 21 April 2003

Source: GNA

Teacher rapes 15 JSS girls and impregnate one

Kuntanase (Ash), April 21, GNA - The police at Kuntanase in the Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District of Ashanti have mounted an intensive search for Kwame Asuah, a teacher at the Onwi local authority Junior Secondary School (JSS) near Kuntanase for allegedly defiling 15 JSS girls and impregnating one of them.

Asuah, who teaches English and social studies, is alleged to have lured the girls on separate occasions into his room and raped them and had since vanished from the town.

The alleged victims, however, refused to report their ordeals for several weeks and months until last week when rumour broke out in the town that Asuah had been infected with the HIV virus.

There was a near commotion in the town as the alleged rape victims whoheard the alleged HIV status of the teacher, began to wail uncontrollably for fear of being infected with the disease and therefore, rushed to their parents to inform them.

Briefing the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Kuntanase on Saturday, Chief Inspector Owusu Banahene, station officer of the Kuntanase police station, said two of the alleged rape victims, including the pregnant girl, had formally reported a rape case against the teacher.

He said the police issued medical forms to the victims to attend hospital and had since then mounted an intensive search for Asuah, who had since vacated his house and gone into hiding.

Narrating his ordeal to the GNA at Onwi, a 16-year-old girl who wrote her BECE recently said Asuah raped her in his room after inviting her to the house.

She said she reported the incident to her grandfather who in turn confronted the teacher.

The alleged victim said Asuah apologised to her grandfather who also accepted it.

She said she did not tell her mother initially because both the mother and Asuah teach in the same school and therefore did not want any confrontation between them.

She said when the rumour broke out in the town that the teacher was HIV positive, all the other victims started crying and reported to their parents who in turn informed the Kuntanase police.