A 57-year-old teacher of a government inter-college in Tehri district of Uttarakhand has been arrested for allegedly raping a 15-year-old Dalit student repeatedly, and who only recently realised that she was eight months pregnant.

Manoj Negi, Kempty station house officer, said the victim’s parents were told that the girl is carrying an eight-month-old foetus, after she was taken to a hospital in Dehradun district on complaints of stomach ache around two weeks ago

“The doctors have told us that it is too late to abort the child now. We are shocked and don’t know what to do,” said the victim’s father, a farmer in Kharak village in Tehri district.

The girl’s alleged rapist, Parmesh Kumar was arrested from Raipur area on the state capital’s outskirts late on Tuesday night.

Kumar, a father of two and also a Dalit, taught history at the college. He used to make the girl stay back at school and had drugged her before raping her for the first time.

“He had been assaulting the girl since January this year. He continued with the crime for months and intimidated her of dire consequences if she revealed about it to anybody,” Negi told HT.

He was produced before a court in New Tehri on Wednesday after which he was sent to judicial custody.

The accused has been booked under Sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) of IPC as well as under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.