Left-wing organisations lead massive protests at Theog in Shimla Saturday. File photo by Pradeep Kumar
FACING PUBLIC ire after its inept handing of the situation following the recent rape and murder of a minor girl, the Himachal Pradesh government landed itself in another controversy by naming a government school after the victim. It had to scrap the move within hours.
The notification to upgrade and name Government Middle School, Dhar Tarpunoo (Tali), as a government senior secondary school after the Class X student was issued Saturday.
The move apparently came after Shimla’s Deputy Commissioner Rohan Chand Thakur and SP Soumya Sambasivan visited the family of the victim for the first time after the crime, which had led to massive protests. In the notification, the government also declared its intentions to made the school functional with immediate effect. The post of principal, five posts of Post-Graduate Teachers (PGTs), one post of each trained graduate teacher (TGT) arts and medical and one post of language teacher was sanctioned.
Sources said later in the day, when the government put up the notification on its website, officials handling legal affairs pointed out the flaw which could attract provisions of Section 228, IPC, against those who had made the identity of the victim public. “We immediately withdrew the notification to correct the mistake,” a senior IAS officer said.