Dubai: An employee has been accused of molesting a nine-year-old schoolgirl in a toy store after allegedly taking her aside on the pretext of teaching her yoga, a court heard on Wednesday.
The girl visited the store in a mall along with her parents in October.
According to records, the girl’s parents were having a conversation when their daughter went around the store wanting to check out some games and disappeared for a few minutes.
Once the parents realised their child’s absence and looked around for her, they found her scared and sobbing.
Records said the girl told her mother that a store employee had taken her aside telling her he would teach her yoga and touched her indecently and made her touch him as well.
After the parents reported the matter to the police, the employee was taken into custody.
Prosecutors accused the 24-year-old Indian suspect of molesting the Jordanian girl. According to the charges sheet, prosecutors said the suspect repeatedly molested the girl and coerced her to touch his private parts.
The suspect failed to appear before the Dubai Court of First Instance where he was scheduled to enter his plea on Wednesday.
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi adjourned the hearing until jail wardens could bring the suspect from his detention and produce him in court on January 21.
The girl’s mother claimed to prosecutors that she was with her husband and daughter at the toy store when her daughter went to check out some games.
“We looked for her and when we found her she seemed petrified and cried. She told me that the suspect told her that he would teach her yoga and took her aside. Then he made her raise her hands up and molested her … he also made her touch him. She told me that when he did so, she pushed him away and ran to us. We called the police,” the mother testified before prosecutors.
The girl was cited as telling prosecutors that the suspect asked her to walk with him to a corner of the shop on the pretext of teaching her yoga and groped her.
