The family of the six-year-old rape victim on Thursday blamed the school for failing to prevent the incident.
The incident comes nearly a month after the murder of a child in a Gurugram school that sparked a debate on the safety of schoolchildren in Delhi-NCR, with the authorities making claims about keeping better vigil in the future.
Like the incident in east Delhi school last month, here too, a contracted employee with access inside the premises has been accused of sexually assaulting a child.
“If the female attendant wasn’t there when my daughter needed her help, who is to be blamed?” said the girl’s father.
He said the school management had sent the woman for some other work, providing an opportunity to the assaulter to enter the washroom.
Blaming the school, he said that he was reconsidering whether to let his daughter continue in the same school. “When I got her admitted here, it was with a belief that she would be safe. Now she herself is scared to go back. The incident is haunting her. Changing the school seems to be the only option,” said the girl’s father who works at IGI Airport. The family hails from Manipur. He further said that the accused, Rakesh, could have well given the police a slip if his wife had not gone back to the school as soon as she learnt about the incident.
“Luckily, he had not left the school. When my wife and daughter went back to the school, one clerk was present while almost everyone else had left. All the staff members were called back to the school. Had he left by then, he would not have returned and be identified,” the girl’s father said.
Meanwhile police investigations have revealed that the school had not taken care before hiring the accused. They had not conducted the mandatory police verification, said an officer. He had been hired a fortnight ago. He, however, does not have any previous criminal record.
‘Accused innocent’
Rakesh’s father Jailal said that he was confident that his son had not committed any such crime and was falsely accused. Rakesh, 23, is the eldest of his four siblings. This was his second job as his previous employer was not paying salary despite him working for months, added Mr. Jailal.