Bengaluru school rape: Chairman, headmistress held
The school failed to follow guidelines issued by both the police and the education department for ensuring safety of children
BENGALURU: The police have arrested the chairman-cum-secretary and the head mistress of a school in Indiranagar, where a three-year-old pre-school student was sexually assaulted by a watchman on Monday. They have been booked for not following the guidelines issued by the police for the safety of children in schools.
The arrests were made on Thursday noon and their names have been withheld. Additional Commissioner of Police (East) P Harisekaran said, “The school failed to follow guidelines issued by both the police and the education department for ensuring safety of children. The police have booked the duo under the provisions of section 188 (disobedience of order duly promulgated by public servant) and Section 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code,” he added.
DCP East N Satheesh Kumar told Deccan Chronicle, “The police on Thursday morning summoned the school secretary, who despite all the evidences against the accused, claimed that the incident didn’t take place inside the school premises. A special team also questioned the head mistress for few hours, before the arrests.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the police had arrested the school watchman, Goutham, 25, and remanded him to judicial custody after he reportedly confessed to the crime.
The members of Women And Child Welfare Committee, who had visited the school on Wednesday, said that there was a lapse on part of the school management. They did not conduct a background verification on the security guard and appointed him on reference, which was a violation of the guidelines issued by the police in July 2014.
MP blames government
Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that repeated incidents of child abuse in schools were due to the failure of the government. He said the recent sexual assault case at a school in Indiranagar has happened because the Government has failed to take requisite action when similar incidents happened in the past.
He pointed out that mandatory verification, periodic audits, fast track prosecution and better policing were the suggestions made by NGOs and parents, but very little determined action has been taken by this Government. He, however, welcomed the ‘belated’ arrest of the school headmistress.